It is a special moment when your work is featured in print. Amy and Samir’s wedding was recently published in The Knot: Ohio. We sat down with the couple to discuss their beautiful day.

HOW DID YOU MEET?
I was a dental hygiene student at The Ohio State University where Samir was in his periodontology residency. My sister came in for a cleaning with me and noticed she had receeding gums, which led us to an appointment with Samir. We met for her consult and I grilled him on the procedure to fix her gums and asked if I could sit in to watch the surgery. The day after her surgery, I had to have him sign some paperwork to prove that I was at the surgery. He saw me and immediately left the 80 year old couple he was consulting with to shoot the breeze with me. When he finally signed my paperwork, he ended the conversation with “we should go out to lunch sometime, facebook me.” The rest is history!

THE LOCATION:
Our ceremony venue was Franklin Park Conservatory, a beautiful botanical garden in Columbus, OH. We chose that location because we really would have loved an outdoor wedding, but with our date in late fall, we thought the weather would be too risky. The Palm House, where our ceremony was held, was a large glass enclosed greenhouse full of tropical plants and greenery. The lunch was held outside on the adjoining terrace.

We changed locations for our reception and went downtown to Vue Columbus. We chose this venue because it has a super cool modern, industrial look to it. It also had been recently renovated and has what they call a “green” room for cocktail hour, which contains hanging greenery that tied in our ceremony location perfectly.

DESCRIBE THE GROOM’S LOOK:
For our ceremony, Samir wore a Sherwani. In a traditional Indian wedding, these are usually ivory in color with accents of red. We put a twist on the traditional and he was an amazing custom made deep blue Sherwani with dark blue embroidery. For the reception, he wore a slim fit navy suit with a tie and pocket square that matched the main bridesmaid dress color, Azalea.

TELL US ABOUT THE WEDDING DRESS:
Because we were incorporating both American and Indian wedding traditions in our wedding, Samir was wearing traditional Indian garments for the ceremony and a suit for the reception. I decided to get 2 wedding dresses to so we both had outfit changes. My ceremony dress was Rivini, with a sweetheart ballgown with a lace bodice and many swooping layers of horsehair fabric on the bottom. It fit like a glove and was actually very comfortable! My reception dress was a little more sexy—a fitted Vera Wang mermaid made of satin fabric. Both of my dresses required extensive alterations because I am short. My advice to other short brides trying to keep alteration costs low–because both of my dresses had 6+ layers at the bottom, each required hemming at a fee, which drastically raised the cost of alterations. Something to keep in mind when considering your dress

WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND YOUR BRIDESMAID LOOKS?
I had 5 bridesmaids. I wanted to go a little out of the box and change up both the style of the dresses and the colors of the dresses so everything wasn’t so matching. I brought all the girls to a boutique in Columbus and had them choose 2-3 dresses they liked of varying styles. We decided each bridesmaid would have a different neckline and could have any fabric they wanted. I started with a color of Azalea and went with hues of purple/pink for the rest of the dresses. I also had my sister, the maid of honor, match the groomsmen in Navy. I think we were able to achieve the eclectic look I was going for.

LET’S TALK BLOOMS! DESCRIBE YOUR BOUQUETS & BOUTONNIERES:
I LOVED MY FLOWERS! I think they were one of my favorite elements of the day. I wanted my bouquet to be medium sized, but loose and organic. We chose to do tropical greenery to keep with my style. I followed my florist on Instagram and loved everything she did, so as far as the flowers themselves, I just gave her the color scheme and she rocked it.

ANY LOCAL INSIDER TIPS FOR PLANNING A WEDDING IN COLUMBUS, OHIO?
There are a few vendors that I would not have changed for the world! Our florist, Adria, at State and Arrow Design Co. was simply amazing. She got little direction from me and just completely blew it out of the water. I loved everything about working with her and the work she did. Our amazing photographers from Style & Story Creative, Ben Hartley and his team, made the whole day easy and a breeze for both us and the bridal party. He made us feel comfortable and kept us having fun the entire day. Finally, our DJ, Tommy Nutter from Diamond entertainment was top notch. Not only was he crucial in helping put together the reception schedule, but the day of he was so organized and told all of us what was going on. We knew if we needed anything that he would make it happen—not to mention his mad skills as putting together a playlist that kept everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, dancing until the last song of the night.