Tahoe Blue Estate Elopement with Indian + American Traditions

Join us as we relive this memorable elopement at Tahoe Blue Estate in the incredible Lake Tahoe region. It is a perfect combination of Indian traditions and a modern-day American destination wedding. The Indian culture is full of color, vibrance and traditions. Family and prayer is valued, making you feel a sense of home the instant you walk through the doors.

After 4 years of being close friends and 3 more years of dating, we began talking about marriage and the next steps in life. My initial idea was inviting 100 of our close friends and family, inviting my family members from India, and having a “big” (aka. “big” in terms of American standards and “small” in terms of Indian standards haha) wedding to celebrate us beginning a life together. We even had our venue booked a year and a half out in preparation. Of course things never really go as planned! Covid hit and just when things were looking like they were turning around, the Delta variant began to spread wildly, and chances of a “big” event as well as my family from India coming to attend a wedding became slim. When my partner proposed to me in Schwabacher’s Landing, WY, I said yes of course! And then we thought, do we really need to wait?! So began the process of trying to elope instead. Life is unpredictable and we knew we just wanted to be together.
We contacted Trisha and began talking about the possibilities of eloping in 2-3 weeks time. It was crazy and filled with a series of lucky miracles and mishaps: (1) It just so happened that our original venue had a last minute cancellation (they get booked a year+ in advance and hardly have any openings!) and we could get it reserved for the actual date of our dating anniversary. (2) After going to over 9 bridal boutiques, there was only one that could make my wedding dress in short notice and ship it from India! Of course, when it came time to ship, India was experiencing heavy floods and I wasn’t sure I would even get the dress on time. By some grace of God, it arrived a few days before the wedding and fit perfectly! (3) the vendor search for photo, film, decor, catering, cake, HMU, etc. went smoothly and we were able to mostly book who we wanted. (4) My father, who was in India attending a funeral, got back safely, in time, and tested negative for Covid! He even had a day in India to go wedding shopping and picked up all my jewelry, ceremony supplies, and even an outfit for our dog! (5) The pastor of the church that my partner and I met at 7 years ago was able to officiate our Christian ceremony and a lifelong family friend of ours was able to fly in and officiate our Indian Hindu ceremony. (6) All our family and guests were covid-negative before and after the wedding, thank God! (7) The afternoon before our wedding day, our videographers tested positive for Covid and couldn’t make it. In a craze, we called around to many videographers to see who could cover our event and live stream in a day’s notice, and we were able to get it done! (8) Tahoe was surrounded by terrible fire air during our wedding week. The day-of we had crazy wind that was both wild to deal with and also blew enough of the fire air away from us that we could actually have the ceremony outside as planned. I didn’t know this at the time, but the next day when there was no wind, it was hard to breathe through the smoke, and the air quality was in the 390s – we realized that the wind day-of was a blessing in disguise! (9) The groom’s father unfortunately got sick and had to rush to the ER the morning of the wedding. For a while, we weren’t sure if they’d be able to attend the wedding. Luckily, he was able to get the treatment he needed, was in recovery, and part of his family could attend the ceremony in time! He is now feeling much better, thank God! (10) While there were ups and downs in planning this elopement, in the end, my partner and I got married in the mountains of Tahoe, overlooking the lake, with family and friends, and we’re thankful for it – as much of a rollercoaster that it was! It is crazy to look back on that day now, I don’t even know how it all happened; but, we’re so grateful for our family and our whole wedding team for helping us make this happen!
The bride

The highly booked (and for good reason) wedding venue spoken of here is Tahoe Blue Estate located near the Nevada/California State line. It’s a finely crafted 7 bedroom, luxurious home built on top of the mountain. Perfect for 15-20 guests! The backside features a staircase to an overlook of…you guessed it…LAKE TAHOE!! It makes for quite the incredible backdrop to a wedding ceremony. Kari, our featured planner and day of coordinator here at ELOPEWEST, was in high heaven until she realized she had to carry 40 chairs down those stairs, and then back up to the other side for dinner. Good thing she’s in top shape!! Not to mention, a total rockstar for pulling all the planning and decor off in just 2 weeks time.

We met up the evening prior to document the pre-wedding Indian traditions of dinner and an intimate, hands-on (literally) prayer over the couple, known as the Haldi Ceremony. While primarily photographing the event, Trisha (me) with XSPERIENCE PHOTOGRAPHY couldn’t resist capturing the traditions in motion to share with you all as well.

Now the Wedding Day story…

We started the morning in Tahoe Blue Estate capturing the getting ready moments. It’s not an easy being an Indian bride. There’s plenty of decorative jewelry to pair with an intricate skirt that weighs almost as much as me lol. After getting ready we found a spot around the back, tucked in-between the big rocks to avoid the high winds as much as possible while the bride and groom saw each other for the first time. It was as exciting to see her reaction to him being decked out in Indian attire for the first time, as it was for him to see his gorgeous soon-to-be-bride.

The ceremony was a bit on the windy side, but meaningful and special none-the-less. Kari was also on the “other” windy side setting up social hour and dinner. And then re-setting it up, and re-setting it up, and so on so forth as the wind continued to blow things over. Her determination paid off and the colorful patterns and fruit decor looked amazing when we all headed over for speeches, dinner, a first dance and the American wedding tradition of cake cutting.

Shortly after we headed to Lake Tahoe for some beautiful sunset portraits and alone time. Awww…sweet alone time… every bride and groom’s favorite part of the day:)