Atish and Emily's Wedding in Barcelona, Spain

After having the dream proposal, we wanted to have our dream wedding. We knew we wanted to have a wedding abroad and considered many different places. Ultimately we kept coming back to Barcelona. This city is so special to us as it was where we went on our first holiday together and made so many incredible memories. We decided to have a small, 75 person wedding with only our closest friends and family.

As I am from Ireland and Atish’s family originate from India we wanted to respect both of our traditions so we decided to have a multi-day wedding celebration including a welcome party, a full Indian wedding and reception and a full Irish wedding and reception. We wanted our wedding to be unique and we thought the best way to achieve this was to add personal touches where possible. Planning a three day, half Indian, half Irish wedding in Barcelona from London was difficult, especially since neither of us spoke Spanish! As we were unable to find everything we needed in Barcelona we had to ship a lot of items to Barcelona and bring additional items from London ourselves.

The first night was a welcome party for all of our guests. We wanted to welcome our guests not only to our wedding but also to Barcelona so they could feel comfortable and fall in love with the city, the same way we did all those years ago. We hosted our party at The EDITION Hotel rooftop where guests had a 360 degree view of the city and all its sights. The food for the evening was Spanish themed and our guests were welcomed with a glass of cava accompanied with a personalised drinks topper. To introduce the blend of cultures which we wanted to run throughout the weekend, we had a henna artist so that all of our guests could get their henna done before the Indian wedding ceremony.

The second day was the Indian wedding which we hosted at Hotel Arts. The hotel has a beautiful garden where we set up our mandap. The greenery of the garden complemented the florals on our mandap and provided additional colour which we felt was essential for the Indian wedding. It was important to keep the festivities as authentic as possible which included the food. Luckily, Hotel Arts had a very talented Indian chef from Mumbai who created an incredible menu and catered for all of our needs.

Few of my friends and family had been to an Indian wedding before (including me) so we had a lot of questions regarding customs, traditions and most importantly….outfits. We encouraged everyone to wear traditional colourful Indian wedding attire where possible. One of Atish’s genius ideas was to have a “Saree fitting room” at Hotel Arts. This was a room where ladies from his side of the family could help my side of the family with their sarees, lenghas and bindis before the ceremony. It was a great success and meant that our family and friends got to know each other better before the ceremony.

For our Indian wedding outfits, we wore pastel colours which complimented the decor of our mandap. I wore an aqua blue and silver lengha. My makeup and hair for the Indian ceremony was dramatic with smoky eyes and big bouncy curls teamed with a silver tikka and veil. I wore a large silver necklace and layered pastel and silver bangles to compliment the outfit. Atish wore a pink sherwani with intricate embellishments and turban which he had completely customised. I had no idea what his outfit looked like until I saw him at the ceremony but wasn’t worried as he is definitely the more fashionable one out of the two of us! Our florals were bright pastels to complement our outfits and provide more colour to the ceremony.

In Indian ceremonies the groom’s wedding guests gather before making a grand entrance with the groom. Atish and his family and friends danced into the Hotel Arts garden with a dhol player, colour bombs and a lot of energy! Upon arriving in the garden and with a little encouragement, all my guests got up on their feet and join Atish, his groomsmen and the rest of his wedding guests in bhangra dancing to the beats of the dhol. To see my family and friends embracing the Indian culture and traditions with such enthusiasm was a very special moment for Atish and I. Following Atish’s entrance, I walked down the aisle with my closest friends. What’s so special about the ceremony is that so many our wedding guests can be involved with the formalities during the ceremony. We had all of our friends and family partake in different stages as directed by a priest which Atish’s family knew and who came over from London to conduct our ceremony.

After the ceremony, and whilst our guests were enjoying a drinks reception with Indian themed canapes, we changed into our evening outfits and made a grand entrance together with the dhol player. For our entrance, we gave all of our guests sparklers and Atish and I danced our way through a sparkler tunnel created by our bridal party. I’d heard at Indian weddings that it’s common for the bride to do a dance. I loved this idea so with some encouragement from his friends wives, I decided to do a surprise dance for Atish. Being a total novice to Bollywood dancing I was completely reliant on his friends for guidance. It took many weeks of secret practices but we managed to execute a group dance to Atish’s total surprise. One thing we loved about the Indian wedding was the unique elements we incorporated. We tied cocktails to the trees in the garden for the guests to pick after the ceremony, a personalised dance floor and had the head pastry chef from the Ritz Carlton hotel group do some live show cooking making a dessert on a giant canvas after dinner.

The next day was the Irish wedding. We wanted a fairy tale wedding with our unique elements thrown in. We chose to have the wedding just outside Barcelona in a 13th century castle, Castell de Sant Marcal. In keeping with the venue, we wore black tie wedding attire. Atish, who is known as having a louder dress sense, wore a custom blazer from Mochee, a London based boutique. He complimented this with colourful socks and Irish cuff links my parents had given him as a gift. I chose to get my dress from the Spanish designer Pronovias, it was the first dress I put on and I fell in love with it immediately. The dress was a princess gown with lace sleeves. I added a beaded cathedral length vale for extra drama and paired the look with Cartier jewellery Atish had given me. My hair and makeup was natural with soft brown tones and loose curls. I finished my look with a spritz of Miss Dior, the first perfume Atish ever bought me. The bridesmaids’ dresses were sleeveless dusty pink gowns. Originally, I was going to get long sleeve dresses to cover up the henna from the Indian wedding but I’m glad I didn’t because it meant that elements of the Indian wedding flowed through to the Irish wedding. Something that was incredibly special for me is that my closest friends did my hair and makeup. One of my maids of honour is a professional make-up artist and another is a professional hairdresser. Having them play such a vital role in the wedding and getting to spend that time with them during the wedding weekend meant so much to me.

To differentiate from the Indian wedding, we chose white florals and candles for the Irish wedding day. We wanted the classic fairy tale aesthetic which complemented the venue. The ceremony was conducted by one of Atish’s oldest friends. He wrote the ceremony script himself, it was thoughtful, heartfelt and there was not a dry eye in the house.

After the ceremony we had a cocktail hour with some Spanish elements including paella (being cooked live in front of our guests) and sangria. While our guest were enjoying the food and drinks, Atish and I changed into our evening attire. Atish wore a champagne custom blazer again from Mochee which complemented my custom silver floor length, off the shoulder beaded gown.

Prior to our entrance, the guests were seated at their tables outside under a canopy of fairy lit trees and chandeliers. Instead of having traditional table numbers we gave each table a unique name. Travelling to different wine regions is something that we’ve loved doing since we started dating. Even COVID-19 restrictions didn’t stop us on our annual wine trip, we managed to visit Kent and Sussex to taste the increasingly popular English sparkling wines. In a nod to our tradition, we named each table after a vineyard we had visited in wine regions such as Tuscany, Bordeaux, Stellenbosch and, of course, some English vineyards. On each table we left a note telling a story about our time at the vineyard and had a bottle of wine from the respective vineyard on the table for our guests to enjoy.

Once the guests were seated, we were ready to make our grand entrance. We had a saxophonist play “Sky Full of Stars” by Coldplay as our names were projected onto the castle. As we crossed the bridge over the moat we had pyrotechnics go off. We entered to all of our friends and family dancing and cheering.

Throughout the dinner we had the projection on the castle show pictures of our engagement. It was important to make the dinner as personal as we could so we added a QR code on top of the dessert. This QR code led the guests to a video of Atish and I thanking them for coming and expressing how much we appreciate each and every person there.

After dinner and the cake cutting we performed our first dance to Elvis - Can’t Help Falling in Love. I always used to hear my dad playing this song downstairs in the kitchen before I would go to sleep and knew that when I met the love of my life I wanted to have the first dance to that song. What made the moment even more special is that my dad brought his guitar from Dublin and played as we performed our first dance.

After we finished our first dance we danced the night away with our guests and celebrated a successful wedding and an incredible weekend.