ISHITA + RICH | FLORIDA

from The Annual Issue 2024

SNEHA + ABHI | TEXAS

Iam Ishita Shah, and I’m beyond ecstatic to have been recently bound by marriage to my best friend, Richard Mills (Rich), on January 13th of 2024. We met at a local Crossfit gym– as we both highly value our health and fitness– and needless to say, we noticed each other pretty early on. We happened to be attending class at the same time of day for a while and became friendly with each other. Outside of crossfit, I love to go on long runs with my Doberman, Nala, and I would post her on my story weekly after our run. Rich soon asked if he could join us for a run some time, and I was overjoyed to accept his request. It seems he had a great time because he invited me to dinner with him right after! We got along really well, as if we had met in another life. It was a breath of fresh air to meet someone who shares similar interests and the excitement to accomplish their goals. We were simply glad to be together– we instantly lit up each other’s lives and developed a passion that made us excited to explore life together.

In 2022, Rich and I took a vacation to Sedona, Arizona for New Years. We thought it would be a fantastic idea to take a hot air balloon around one day to see Arizona from a different perspective, but I didn’t know Rich’s plan was to propose in the hot air balloon! I was surprised but incredibly thrilled, just simply over the moon to have then finally shared a promise with the man I love that we would bind each other through marriage and really begin our life together.

Fortunately, we already had the “vision” for our wedding in mind. One of our first vacations as a couple had been to Key Largo, and we absolutely fell in love with the location (and with each other as well). We adored the tropical theme– a chic island feel without the ballroom wedding theme that we always saw as tacky.

As we began thinking about planning our wedding, we were very thorough in our research selecting a vendor. We wanted to make the best choice we could, selecting the vendor with the most expertise and understanding for our vision. I went through many reviews and phone and zoom calls, and I felt very confident in choosing Jennifer Matteo Event Planning in the end. Jennifer already had specific vendors in mind, and she fit her planning and all of her vendors to our vision perfectly. The venue we picked was The Oasis at Islamorada, Florida. It was absolutely stunning. We were very appreciative of the fact that we were able to do anything and everything we wanted without the typical restrictions enforced by other venues/hotels or ballroom themes. The Oasis was amazing for the four celebratory events we had.

We had an American wedding ceremony, a Sangeet ceremony, an Indian wedding ceremony, and a reception. We wanted to maintain the tropical vision for all four events and, of course, incorporate incredible food and champagne. The festivities were magnificent, and we certainly proved wrong to anyone who says they didn’t enjoy the food at their own wedding! Out of the four, our favorite event was definitely the reception, though all were stunning. As we reached the reception, we knew that the wedding and all events had been a success due to our hard work, and were able to enjoy the most amazing weekend of our entire lives.

We loved the tie between our Indian wedding ceremony and the Sangeet outfits, resulting in an absolutely gorgeous style of outfits and jewelry. My parents actually helped me to a great extent with the wedding shopping itself– they had the best insight into Indian outfits and fabrics through lots of middle-of-the-night Facetime calls to India.

As far as our honeymoon, we wanted to wait to travel until 2025, but we’re very excited and planning to go to New Zealand! We feel so blessed to have experienced the best weekend of our lives celebrating our marriage… in fact, we’re already planning to renew our vows in ten years.