Fathima, a bride that will always have a special spot in my heart because her wedding is the first wedding that is solely under the ASA banner. I have worked under other wedding planners for years and have worked many weddings in conjunction with my wedding planner friends.. but she will go down officially as the FIRST A Shahzadi Affair – Shahzadi. <3
She is essentially the perfect bride. From the first day that I met her, I knew I liked her. I got her. This is huge to me. I need to get inside the head of my Shahzadi. If I can’t get in your head, how on earth am I to create your vision? She and I spoke for a few hours and at the end, I could easily tell that she was a planner herself. With a mere four months to plan her big day, she didn’t waste any time.
It would be dishonest of me to say I did a great deal of sourcing work, because I didn’t. Fathima was a Prepared Princess. She had all her vendors in place by the time we met, she had a pretty good idea of how she wanted the day to flow and the details that she wanted to incorporate into the big day. That’s where A Shahzadi Affair came in. When she has signed her Videographer Joseph of JF2 Films, he noticed that she had a lot of little details that he felt would be best executed with the help of a wedding planner. He was gracious enough to recommend me to her and the rest is history!
Colour Theme
Initially, she had a schedule that she had created. From her schedule, I helped her create an easy to read and comprehensive master schedule for her Shaadi day. I made personalized schedules geared toward her vendors (omitting information from the master schedule that did not pertain to them) so that they also had a great handle on the vision in her head. ASA contacted vendors prior to the wedding to insure that they were aware of their responsibilities and aided in any last minute alterations and tasks.
One of the most important things we did was attend the site finalization meeting where the venue manager and we discussed things from final attendance numbers, to tablecloth and napkin colours all the way down to the napkin fold. Making sure to discuss what was being provided by the hall and what elements were being provided by the bride. Once we had ironed out all those details, we were able to take a breath and move on to the details.
Our Shahzadi had many little details that really made her day unique to her:
- Personalized chocolate bars – she designed the wrappers and wrapped each chocolate bar herself.. I’m hoping she had help, because there were 600 bars
- DIY double-sided menu/program cards
- DIY table numbers with little notes on why that perticular number is significant
- Wedding wishes cards, which replaced your traditional guest book. Guests filled in cards with advice and left them in boxes to collected and read later by the Bride and Groom!
- They played a customized Deal or No Deal game to make the shoe negotiations a little more fun! (more on that below.)
- They had a midnight snack bar featuring popcorn and cookies (the Bride & Groom’s favorite snacks)
- A custom photo wall
- A sparkler send off!
A couple of days prior to the event, we picked up all the necessary items that needed to be set up at the hall. My car was filled to the brim with stainless steel suitcases, stationary, jars, and 600 chocolate bars! Believe me it’s easier for us to deal with all that rather then the bride’s family. You don’t want to be responsible for anything that will cause stress on the day of. Getting these items before hand eases the last minute stress and eliminates things getting forgotten.
On the day of the event, our Shahzadi needed some help while her bridesmaids and herself pampered themselves and got ready for the BIG EVENT! We opted to leave the family members out of doing last minute pickups, because that can be stressful on the person doing the pickups. En route of our pickups, Fathima calls saying that she does not have enough “Reserved” signs. So we make a detour and get more printed. *Crisis averted* We move on to pick up the photo wall, the cookies and the popcorn.
Although the day was rainy, we managed to get off to a good start. We ensured that the whole hall was set up to Fathima’s specifications and ensured that we set up the favours and personalized menu/program cards. The hall worked in conjunction with us to make sure that all the food and drink was ready to go and helped to really keep everything relatively on schedule. The vendors worked beautifully together. Taking cue from each other to ensure we were all on the same page. The DJ was really fun and knew how to work the crowd. One of the highlights of the night was the fun and unique way the bridesmaids extracted their fee for stealing the Groom’s shoes! They played a game of Deal or No Deal where the suitcase that he picked had him paying $900 for his shoes but the Groom is a smart one and took the banker’s offer and paid a cool $500! (He knows a good deal when he sees it!)
The dance floor was such a hit that guests were not interested in going home (that is such a good feeling!) However, a Shaadi is not complete without a Ruksati (farewell) and we coordinated with the bridal party to have sparklers lit as they left the venue so that they would have a unique and fun way to say goodbye to their old lives and usher in a new life full of sparkling moments!
Thank you Fathima & Atif for letting A Shahzadi Affair orchestrate your vision <3
Partners in Vision Orchestration:
| Red Rose Banquet Hall | Diya Decor | JF[Squared] Films | Dastan Studio | Fine Cakes By Zehra |
| Xpressions By R&A| Empire Entertainment |
“Day Of”- Coordination A Shahzadi Affair
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