Shashank + Elena | Day One | Indian Wedding Ceremony | Gaithersburg, MD

Today I’m excited to share part one of Elena and Shashank‘s two part wedding celebration this past weekend! They kicked off their two-day celebration with the Indian Ceremony in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

The Couple

Since we have a two day blog post for this wedding, I’m going to share what Elena wrote split up across both days. Today, the story of how they met and tomorrow, their proposal! From the bride: “The summer before we both started grad school at Caltech, Shashank messaged me on Facebook to welcome me to the class. Apparently, I was one of few people who actually replied and kept up a conversation with him throughout that summer. Once we got to Caltech and met in person, we actually didn’t get off to the smoothest start since I can be rather reserved and shy, but one day during an orientation dinner, I noticed that Shashank was much quieter than he had been. When he left the dinner early, I reached out to him. We ended up going out for dessert together that night, and I realized that I had never met anyone else I could talk to so easily. From that point onward, we started hanging out frequently after work, often ending up taking really long walks around Pasadena – sometimes 7-8 hours straight! Everything else just followed naturally after that. When I took a yearlong leave of absence from Caltech to study abroad in New Zealand, we FaceTimed every day (literally! except when I was in a remote area with no high-speed internet, but even then we texted or called each other every day), and Shashank even flew out to spend two weeks with me. After 16 days of road-tripping across New Zealand with him, when we were together 24 hrs a day and it still didn’t feel like enough time, I knew he was someone I could spend the rest of my life with.”

The Wedding

Everything on Friday took place near Elena’s parents home. They got ready at their house, with portraits at an old farmhouse across the street, and the reception at the community center in the neighborhood. It was so fun that for the Baraat, everyone could easily walk from the house to the reception! We were only together for a few hours but we were able to get some pretty fantastic moments and portraits in a short period of time. Here are just a few of my favorites from day one!

Shashank and Elena’s Indian Wedding Ceremony Photos

Vendors

Photographer: Breanna Shaw, Photography by Brea
Second Photographer: Tommy Wagner
Videographer: Video Express Productions
Officiant: Pandit Ram Shastri
Caterer: Passage to India
Bridal Shop: Frontier Raas
Makeup Artist: Jan Scott