Seven Celebrations, Two Traditions, One Family — Shivani + Robi’s Indian Wedding in Dallas

Most weddings give us one day.

One morning, one ceremony, one reception, one evening of dancing and toasting and holding each other on a dance floor while the people who love you most form a circle around you.

Shivani and Robi gave us an entire week.

Seven events across five days. Two distinct cultural traditions — Punjabi and Hindu — woven together into a single, seamless, extraordinarily beautiful celebration. Outfits and color palettes that shifted with each sunrise. Rituals that carried generations of meaning in every gesture and every song. And two families who met each other across a table of shared tradition and chose, without reservation, to simply become one.

We have photographed hundreds of weddings. We have documented love in dozens of forms and settings and seasons. But Shivani and Robi’s celebration was something we had never quite experienced before — and something we will carry with us for the rest of our careers.

This is their story.

Why We Love Photographing Indian Weddings

Before we walk you through Shivani and Robi’s week, we want to say something directly to every Indian couple in Dallas-Fort Worth who is searching for a photographer.

We see you. And we are here for all of it.

Indian weddings are, without question, some of the most visually extraordinary, emotionally layered, and culturally rich celebrations in the world. Every event carries meaning that goes back generations and every color is intentional. Every ritual is a thread in a tapestry of identity and love and family that no single afternoon ceremony could ever hold.

As wedding photographers and filmmakers, this is the work that genuinely excites us. The Mehndi night when the henna is still drying and the laughter is loudest. The Haldi ceremony when the turmeric is everywhere and no one cares. And, the moment in the ceremony when a ritual has been performed for centuries and you feel, behind your camera, the full weight of that continuity.

We bring our documentary-meets-editorial eye to every cultural wedding we photograph. We do not impose a Western aesthetic onto a celebration that has its own visual language. Instead, we listen and learn. We arrive early, we stay late, and we document everything — from the quietest preparation moments to the loudest dance floor frames — with the same care and intention we bring to every wedding we photograph.

If you are planning an Indian wedding in Dallas-Fort Worth, we would be honored to be part of it.

The Week That Was: Shivani + Robi’s Seven-Event Celebration

Day One: Mehndi

Every great story has a beginning that sets the tone for everything that follows. For Shivani and Robi, that beginning was the Mehndi.

The Mehndi is one of the most visually lush events in the entire Indian wedding calendar. Henna artists work their way across hands and arms and feet, tracing intricate patterns that will darken over the coming days into something rich and permanent.

Day Two: Haldi + Maiyaan

The Haldi ceremony is sacred and joyful in equal measure. Turmeric paste — vibrant, golden, deeply symbolic — is applied to the bride and groom by family members to bless and cleanse them before the wedding.

There is something genuinely moving about the Haldi. By definition, it is not a perfectly composed event. Turmeric ends up everywhere. Laughter disrupts every posed moment. And that is the point — it is real, it is loving, and it is honest. As documentary photographers, we live for exactly this.

Shivani’s Haldi palette glowed — the golden yellow of the turmeric against her outfit, the color of her family’s love surrounding her.

Night Two: Chooda + Sangeet

The Chooda ceremony is one of the most beautiful and meaningful rituals of a Punjabi wedding. Shivani’s maternal uncle placed the red and white Chooda bangles on her wrists — traditionally kept covered and unseen until the ceremony, they represent the beginning of her new life. The moment the Chooda goes on is quiet and tender and full of the particular weight that family rituals carry when everyone in the room understands what they mean.

Then came the Sangeet.

If the Chooda is quiet, the Sangeet is the opposite. The Sangeet is the great musical celebration of the Indian wedding week — an evening of performances, dancing, and the kind of joy that can only exist when two families have fully relaxed into each other. Family members perform choreographed dances. Songs are sung. The dance floor belongs to everyone equally, and the energy in the room is electric.

Shivani and Robi’s Sangeet was everything we hoped it would be. The colors shifted again with the evening — a new palette, a new outfit, new energy that felt like a celebration finally exhaling into full volume. We photographed until our cameras were full and our hearts were fuller.

Day Three + Four: The Hindu Ceremony + The Sikh Ceremony

Two complete, distinct, deeply meaningful rituals performed by a couple who honored both of their traditions with equal reverence.

The Hindu ceremony unfolded with the sacred fire at its center. The Saptapadi — seven steps around the fire, one for each vow — is one of the most beautiful rituals in any wedding tradition. Each step is a promise. Each circle around the flame is witnessed by everyone gathered. The fire is the witness, the priest is the guide, and the couple is the center of something that has been performed for thousands of years.

Then the Sikh ceremony — the Anand Karaj. Four rounds around the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy scripture, with the Lavan prayers marking each completion. The presence of the scripture, the singing of the hymns, the absolute reverence of the gathered community — it is a ceremony that asks for stillness and attention, and every person in the room gave both.

Day Five: The Traditional Wedding Reception at The Milestone in Aubrey

After four days of ceremony and celebration, the traditional wedding reception at The Milestone in Aubrey was the final, joyful crescendo of the entire week.

The Milestone is a beautiful event venue in Aubrey, Texas — and it held the scale of Shivani and Robi’s guest list beautifully. By the time the reception arrived, both families had spent four days becoming one. The warmth in that room was not the polite warmth of people who have just met. It was the warm ease of people who have danced together, cried together, laughed together, and shared a week of meaning together.

The reception had the energy of a celebration that had been building for five days — because it had. The dance floor was full from the first song. The colors of the week — so many different palettes, so many different outfits — felt somehow present in the room even in their absence, as if the whole week had led to this. Shivani and Robi moved through their reception as a married couple for the first time, and the joy on their faces was the specific joy of people who have arrived.

Multi-Day Indian Wedding Film

Two Families, Two Traditions, One Extraordinary Week

The most moving thing about Shivani and Robi’s wedding week was not any single ceremony or any single color palette or any single moment of extraordinary beauty — though there were many of all three.

It was the families.

Shivani’s family brought their Hindu traditions. Robi’s family brought their Punjabi Sikh traditions. And together, across seven events and five days, they did not navigate those differences so much as they celebrated them. Every room was welcoming, every ritual was honored, an every guest from both sides was fully present for traditions that may not have been their own.

This is what a wedding is supposed to do. Not just unite two people but unite two families. Build a bridge between worlds and invite everyone across it.

We were privileged witnesses to all of it. And we are deeply grateful.

Planning a Multi-Day Indian Wedding in DFW?

If you are planning a multi-day Indian wedding in Dallas-Fort Worth, here is what we want you to know about working with us.

We cover the full week. From Mehndi to reception, we are there for every event. We do not treat the ceremonies as separate bookings — we treat them as chapters of a single story, and we document them accordingly.

We bring both photography and film. For a multi-day Indian wedding, film is particularly important. The sounds of an Indian wedding — the music, the prayers, the laughter, the Anand Karaj hymns — are as much a part of the story as the images. Our film captures the audio as beautifully as it captures the visual.

We come prepared. Before any Indian wedding we photograph, we research the traditions that will be observed. We want to understand what each ritual means before we arrive — so that when the moment happens, we are ready. We are not documenting something unfamiliar; we are honoring something significant.

We love color. Truly and completely. The vibrancy of Indian wedding aesthetics — the reds and golds and pinks and oranges and jewel tones that shift across a week of celebration — is something our documentary-editorial eye is made for. We are not trying to minimize the color or make it palatable to a Western aesthetic. We are here to celebrate it.

A Note on What These Images Will Mean Someday

Shivani and Robi have photographs and film from seven events across five days. They have the Mehndi laughter and the Haldi mess and the Chooda moment and the Sangeet dancing and both ceremonies and the reception.

Someday, their children will watch their wedding film. They will see their grandparents young. They will see two families becoming one across five days and seven events.  And, they will see the rituals their parents honored — the fire, the scripture, the turmeric, the bangles — and they will understand something about who they are.

That is the legacy that multi-day wedding photography creates. Not just beautiful images. A complete record of identity and love and family, preserved in a form that never fades.

That is why we do this work. And that is why we would be honored to do it for you.

a warm and sincere thanks to the creative team…

Photographer + Filmmaker: Kyrsten Ashlay Photography

Hair + Makeup for Sangeet: Bridal Pros

Hair + Makeup for Ceremonies + Reception: JTorry Makeup + Hair Artistry

Henna: Henna by Swarda

Sangeet + Hindu Wedding Decor: SK Decoration

Gurdwara Decor: My Elite Events

Reception Venue: The Milestone; Aubrey, TX

Reception Floral: Design Haus Floral

Reception Signage: Lyons Paperie

Reception Outfit: Evotique

Hindu + Sangeet Outfit: Jyotika Patel Designs

Anand Karaj Outfit: Custom Recreation of Marwar Couture

Reception DJ: DJ Ricky Sekhon w. Outspoken Visions

Looking for an Indian Wedding Photographer in Dallas?

If you are planning a multi-day Indian wedding in DFW — whether it is three events or seven, whether it is Hindu, Sikh, Punjabi, South Indian, or a beautiful fusion of traditions — we would love to be considered for your celebration.

Kyrsten Ashlay Photography brings both photography and film to every wedding we document. We approach every cultural celebration with genuine reverence, deep preparation, and the documentary instinct that produces images you will treasure for generations.

We are currently booking 2027 and 2028 weddings and events. Multi-day Indian weddings book well in advance — if your date is coming, please reach out soon.

Let’s start a conversation →

Timeless photos & films, crafted with heart. Where every moment becomes art.