Colorful & Regal Indian Wedding With Watercolor Details

Regal and Colorful Indian Wedding with Watercolor Details – Chris Taylor 12

Oh, how we love when brides and grooms take regal estates and splash them color and fun! We recently gabbed about this English wedding filled with fun, animal party decor, and now today we gush over this stunning watercolor Indian wedding at Holkam Estate.

A meaningful venue choice for both Hayley and Ankit, the regal Holkam Estate served as a stunning backdrop for this explosion of color early last Spring. Taking cue from their colorful Indian clothing & florals, the couple made such great use of the ever-trending watercolor invitation style we adore so much.

We also just love how the couple inserted so many personal details via their food menus. Including local brownies and ice cream (which also feature the cutest watercolor ice cream menu!), the couple were able to share ‘a few of their favorite things’.

Our Love Story

We lived next door to each other in university halls in London. We were best friends straight away but we did not get together until eighteen months later. Ankit likes to tell me often that he knew we would get married a long time before I caught on!

Ankit proposed on the beach at Sheringham round the corner from where I live. It was a few days before Christmas and he took me out for a walk and a hot chocolate. He pretended to take a photo of me and when I turned around he had the ring ready. I was so surprised I didn’t have the greatest reaction – when I turned around I just said: “what are you doing!?” But it was perfect.

Regal and Colorful Indian Wedding with Watercolor Details – Chris Taylor 10

The Venue

Why did we choose Holkham? There is a photo of me at Holkham Hall aged three on holiday just before my parents decided we should move to North Norfolk and now there is a photo of me and Ankit under the same tree in our wedding clothes! I took Ankit there on his first visit to Norfolk (when we were still just friends!) and we have visited often since. After we were engaged, we actually didn’t look at another venue, it was just the obvious place for us because it means something special to us and we thought it would be the perfect place for an Indian wedding!

The Planning

We wanted to have a lot of colour at the wedding to compliment all the Indian outfits and our personalities! This was mainly through the amazing flowers, lighting and the artwork that my dad, Peter Kavanagh, drew for our invitations, table plans, the order of the day etc. He did such a good job of bringing our ideas to life. There was also a lot of colour on our brilliant cake from Amber at Love Wedding Cakes.

The Photography

We had always loved Chris’ photography style as he takes so many photos around North Norfolk where I am from, so the choice was very simple for us!

Regal and Colorful Indian Wedding with Watercolor Details – Chris Taylor 4

Regal and Colorful Indian Wedding with Watercolor Details – Chris Taylor 5

The Ceremony

We were really keen to have an Indian wedding, not only because we knew it would be such a nice experience for everyone on Hayley’s side of the family, but also because of how much it involves so many people in the ceremony and how it’s all about family and the two families coming together.

Lots of our family members came up during the ceremony to sit next to us or throw petals over us as we walked around the fire. For example, eight of Hayley’s brothers (cousins) came up to pass rice to offer to the fire and three married women from each of our families came up to whisper wisdom and blessings in Hayley’s ear.

We think it really acknowledges how important all these people are in your life and how you couldn’t be who you are without them. And how important they are to your relationship – it was Hayley’s mum and dad in the ceremony who literally tied the knot between me and Ankit. I loved it!

Regal and Colorful Indian Wedding with Watercolor Details – Chris Taylor 7

Regal and Colorful Indian Wedding with Watercolor Details – Chris Taylor 8

The Reception

We had the ceremony in the Lady Elizabeth Wing and then moved on to the Marble Hall for champagne, and Indian canapes – including pani puri, mini idly, chilli paneer – as well as those brownies from Stiffkey Stores that guests could take away with them in a little bag. We changed our clothes then to ‘western’ wear for the evening. The reception was back to the Lady Elizabeth Wing where we had a plated halloumi starter, followed by sharing dishes of daal makhni, channa masala etc and dessert was chocolate cake with salted caramel and passion fruit. Ronaldo’s came from about 9.30 in the evening with 10 of our favourite flavours including a bespoke flavour that we had especially made for us! We had fireworks over the lake before the first dance.

Regal and Colorful Indian Wedding with Watercolor Details – Chris Taylor 9

Favorite Details

The colours of the wedding and the amazing flowers felt like a detail that was very us, so special and quite unique. The only time Hayley cried on the day was saying goodbye to the beautiful flower arch at the end of the night! We tried to include lots of touches that would mean something to us and for our guests to enjoy too! It’s so hard to choose a favourite moment, but walking down the aisle and seeing everyone smiling faces is definitely a highlight!

Regal and Colorful Indian Wedding with Watercolor Details – Chris Taylor 15

Regal and Colorful Indian Wedding with Watercolor Details – Chris Taylor 16

The Party

During dinner we had a wandering acoustic band that played requests to each table, they were called Wandering Hands. After dinner, we had the DJ Jeremy Durrant. Hayley’s uncle Paddy also performed for ten minutes as a special guest – Elvis! He was brilliant!

We also really wanted everyone to have fun and for it to include a lot of little touches to make it personal to us such as our favourite brownies from Stiffkey Stores as a canape and our favourite local ice cream from Ronaldo’s served in the evening. Our tables were all different ice creams and everyone’s place name was their own little paper ice cream.

Regal and Colorful Indian Wedding with Watercolor Details – Chris Taylor 18

Advice to Other Couples

I think our biggest piece of advice is to enjoy the planning process as much as the day itself! The tastings for the food is one of our favourite moments of the wedding as we missed most of the food on the day! The day was made extra special because we saw all the things we had thought so hard about come together so well on the day. What a team!