A Very Fashionable Desert Elopement

Once Simran Kohli and Vishal Amin decided they would have a small wedding (and one that was very, very small by Indian American standards), they wanted to find a venue that had the same aesthetic as the Utah resort Amangiri. Ultimately, they realized the best example would be Amangiri itself.

“We had visited in the past just as guests, and it stood out to me as the most beautiful place to get married—it’s just so peaceful,” Simran says. “Vishal and I were talking and he was like, ‘Simran, if this is your dream location, why don’t we just pivot and stop trying to find places that are like Amangiri and just do it at Amangiri?’”

They planned the wedding, which included only their immediate families, in six weeks and were able to rent the entire property for New Year’s Eve weekend. “I really liked the idea of a New Year’s Eve wedding, because when you’re older, New Year’s Eve is something that you put a lot of effort into finding plans for, and then it usually never lives up to the expectation. So to have your anniversary be New Year’s was pretty attractive to me,” Vishal admits. It should be noted that the bride’s grandparents also got married on December 31.

Simran, who is the vice president of Greenlite, a female-owned energy efficiency firm, and Vishal, a managing director at Blackstone, met on Bumble, which Vishal was on the board of. (He notes that their relationship was celebrated as a Bumble success story at Bumble meetings.) There were custom linen napkins embroidered with bumblebees at the reception as a cheeky nod to the app.

“While Indian weddings are known for being multi-day grand productions, we wanted to take the opposite approach with an intimate, elegant, family-only elopement at a place that feels overwhelming special, where we could surround ourselves with our loved ones to welcome in this new phase of our lives—and the new year,” Vishal says. It was very important to the couple to take care of their guests (they referenced wanting a “high-touch” experience) and plan private activities for them, like stargazing and a guided tour of Antelope Canyon, for example. They worked with wedding planner Erica Vanco of Estera Events.

The wedding weekend included a stop in Las Vegas, big fashion moments, and quality time with their 14 guests. Read on for details.

The Welcome Dinner

The festivities kicked off at the Wynn Las Vegas, where the couple hosted a dinner at the Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant Wing Lei before hitting the casino. “It was a really fun night to get everybody comfortable with each other at the get-go. Vishal’s dad won $8,000, which was a really good sign. We were all like, ‘This is going to be a great weekend,’” says Simran.

The Ganesh Puja

The following day, everyone made the two-hour drive to Amangiri. The couple did the Ganesh Puja, a Hindu wedding ceremony, on the top of Saddle Landing, a remote spot with incredible views. Per tradition, Lord Ganesh is meant to destroy evil and obstacles and the ceremony sets up the couple for a bright new beginning. “It was just the two of us at sunset with Vishal’s priest, who has been with his family for probably 25 years now,” Simran says. Vishal’s grandfather recruited him when he was setting up a temple in Louisville; he now feels like a member of their family.

The Welcome Gifts

Guests were given monogrammed backpacks filled with gifts personalized for each person. They included Le Labo Laurier 62 candles, which the couple loves, sheet masks, Levain cookies, sunscreen kits from Supergoop (a company that Vishal invests in), Simran’s favorite truffle popcorn, and, for the kids, Legos.

The Morning Of

It was important to the couple that they spend the morning with each other and get ready together. “I think in an elopement, something that we wanted to be really mindful of is focusing on our relationship,” Simran says. She wore a silk robe, camisole, and pants from Kiki de Montparnasse with Khaite sandals and a pendant with her grandfather’s thumbprint on it.

The Looks

The couple loves fashion. In Las Vegas, Simran wore a Chanel outfit she’d bought in Capri after getting engaged, and Vishal wore a Ralph Lauren tuxedo. For the first day at Amangiri, Simran wore a sage green Taller Malmo cape dress. “It felt very whimsical for where we were, and very desert-y.” Vishal wore an outfit from the Indian designer Tarun Tahiliani.

For the wedding, she wanted a lehenga that she really felt like herself in. She traveled to India with Vishal’s mother and they visited many designers before deciding to work with Anamika Khanna, who has an east-meets-west style that Simran was drawn to. “I did a handmade lace lehenga that was all cream and ivory, which is quite untraditional for an Indian bride, but I loved it. I worked with them to make it my style. I wanted it to be more tapered and less of a heavy Indian lehenga,” she says. That evening, she wore a TOVE Studio gown.

Vishal wore an outfit from Sabyasachi for the wedding and a brown Brioni tux.

The Ceremony

Simran and Vishal adapted elements of Indian wedding rituals. While the groom typically enters first and is taken to the mandap (the altar) before he sits with the bride’s family after a welcoming ceremony, Vishal’s niece served as a flower girl and Simran entered immediately after her. She walked down a pathway that ran from the balcony of her room, through the desert, to the mandap, which has four pillars to represent four stages of life.

“I entered in a Western style, despite it being an Indian wedding. Traditionally, Indian brides are fully draped. We didn’t really want to do that. We took elements that we liked. We’re both second- and third-generation Indian, so [we took] things that we liked from Western culture and things that were important to our family and obviously religious [elements], but tried to find a blend of what we felt comfortable with,” Simran says. “I still did a traditional bridal entrance. We did a flower girl and we did cute things at the ceremony.”

The couple did the Mangal Phera, a wedding step that has them circle a fire. Vishal led the first three rotations, and Simran led the final one. Each circle symbolizes a life goal. “The tradition is that whoever sits back down first (after the four circles are complete) will be the one in the couple that runs the household in the future,” Simran shares. In the Saptapadi, the couple takes seven steps, each one signifying a marital vow. Simran and Vishal chose to write their own vows.

“We wanted to respect the religious aspects of a Hindu wedding ceremony, but it was through a modern lens that is more representative of our relationship,” she adds. “We really view our relationship as a partnership of two equals sharing in life’s responsibilities and rewards. So, during the Saptapadi, we recited the same vows that we wrote ourselves, whereas usually, women only take specific vows based on traditional gender roles.”

During an Indian wedding, the groom will typically give the bride a necklace called a mangalsutra, which is seen as a thread connecting the two. Vishal’s mother created a mangalsutra for the bride using diamonds from the one she received at her own wedding.

The Décor

Simran really wanted the couple’s aesthetic, which skews ethereal, to embrace natural elements, particularly in regards to the mandap. They dreamed of a mandap that was in line with Amangiri’s minimalist look and spoke to the beauty of the desert. “We used local floral elements, woods, hays, boulders, and rocks to feel like the mandap could have always been there, and like our wedding ceremony belonged where it was,” Simran says. The couple worked with florist Sarah Winward to create floral clouds around the structure. Guests sat on boulders instead of chairs, and were given personalized blankets.

The Reception

The reception table featured hundreds of candles that melted throughout the night, creating different shapes. A uniquely curated dinner menu boasted wines brought by the couple and Vishal’s family. “I’m 40, so I think my parents been waiting a long time for me to get married,” Vishal admits. “You end up buying these bottles of wine and they’re like, ‘Oh, we’re going to save this for your wedding.’ Then it ends up being 10 more years, so the wine just gets better.”

After dinner, the couple moved to the Desert Lounge, an area of the property meant for events that overlooks the mesas and sand dunes. “We were a little nervous. It was very important for us to have a fun wedding, but when you have such a small wedding, it’s like, okay, well, how do you make it fun? I think people turned up, and we had a DJ and a live violinist,” Vishal says.

The night ended with fireworks—a dream come true for the couple. The groom loves the movie Meet Joe Black, and he always envisioned the score from the end as being part of his wedding. “We told them, ‘Hey, this is what we want the fireworks [set] to,’” Vishal says. “It was magical.”