It took Sangeeta and Jake Gomez six months to find their dream wedding venue. The Sikh-British bride and English groom wanted a destination that would allow them to celebrate both their cultures in a harmonious blend. “We both adore the vibe of the South of France, and unanimously agreed upon it. But we had to scour the French Riviera for six months to find the perfect venue that we believed would be the cornerstone of our celebrations,” explains the bride. When they finally came across Villa Baulieu—a chateau in Provence with a 2,000-year-old vineyard — they knew this was it. “When we reached out, we were informed that they only host three weddings a year, and had only one slot remaining for 2023,” reminisces the bride. The duo instantly said yes, making them the first British couple to exchange vows at the property, and the first Indian wedding to take place there too.
Sangeeta and Jake were first introduced by a mutual friend, though it took a year and a chance encounter for the acquaintance to turn into a romance. Following a proposal in Tulum in Mexico, they tied the knot last year with guests flying in from all over the world to raise a toast to them. The couple wanted the wedding to be modern but equally steeped in their cultures and customs. Hence the itinerary included events such as the haldi, jago, mehendi, choora, Anand Karaj and white wedding. The jago also doubled as a Saint Tropez-inspired welcome party with traditional Sikh elements. The vow exchange was all about contemporary elegance and minimalistic décor, while the Anand Karaj and reception had Indian music and dhol players to set the mood.
The tasteful couple wanted to bring their unique point of view to various aspects of the wedding, and this informed the vendors they worked with. For instance, they discovered Kaitlin Case, a digital fashion illustrator from Arizona via TikTok, had asked her to create their wedding stationery suite even though she had never worked on one before.
The couple also considers themselves to be fashion-forward, so the wardrobe was an important focus too. Sangeeta wore a lehenga from Liz Paul for the mehendi and choora ceremony, and a Kashmiri pearl-embroidered sari from Manish Malhotra for the welcome party, while Jake was in a Qbik sherwani. For the wedding, she chose a timeless Alena Leena gown with a two-tier cathedral veil, with the groom in a tuxedo from Scabal and a bow tie from Huntsman Savile Row. She went with a classic red Sabyasachi lehenga for the wedding and the groom wore Seema Gujral. The bride then changed into a mint green lehenga from Ejaaz Couture lehenga, which was so voluminous and big that it had its own seat on the flight to France!
The couple spared no detail. While they served wine from the estate’s vineyard, they travelled through the region of Champagne to pick out bubbly for the wedding, ultimately settling on Champagne J.H Quenardel from a family-owned independent vineyard. They tweaked customs to remain authentic to themselves too. The bride’s mother walked her down the aisle, and gave her away. The groom brushed up his Punjabi speaking skills to address the bride’s grandmother, their “VIP guest,” as they call her, in his speech. As glamorous as the setting was, it was all deeply personal, lending the wedding the ultimate kind of inimitable charm.
