Meher & Siddharth, Rishikesh

Meher is a yoga teacher who had lived in Rishikesh for four years, and Siddharth's family is from Lucknow. They wanted the wedding to feel like the Rishikesh they knew: the river first, everything else second. That meant 160 guests at a riverside camp and resort upstream of the town, a fully vegetarian, alcohol-free celebration by choice, and pheras on the sand with the Ganga running right behind the mandap.

Riverside sand makes every setup harder. We laid a raised deck for the mandap and dining, anchored the canopy against the evening wind that funnels down the valley, and sized a generator for the lighting because the camp's supply could not carry it. The access road takes one vehicle at a time, so transfers from Rishikesh ran in tempo travellers on a fixed schedule. Late-November nights by the river fall to 9°C, so every guest found a shawl on their chair.

The first evening ended with a private Ganga aarti led by priests from a local ashram, with 160 guests holding diyas at the water's edge. The haldi ran on the sand the next morning, and the pheras began at 7:30 pm under festoon lights, with the river loud enough to hear between the mantras.