When the bride designed her own wedding jewels

As a jewellery designer, Aavriti Jain had a very clear vision of how she wanted to look on her wedding day: she didn’t want a designer lehenga to steal the spotlight from her jewellery. “The clothes were a necessity, but jewellery was the main hero,” says the founder of the brand Dhora and concept store Teatro Dhora. She didn’t stop at her own outfits. Each wedding guest wore pieces gifted from her label, making jewellery central to the festivities.

Jain first saw her husband, Karan Jhangiani, at a techno gig in Goa. But it wasn’t until she spotted him at another gig, in Mumbai a few days later, that she finally introduced herself. “It was very out of character for me, but I approached him, and we exchanged numbers. After that, we met a bunch of times and started hanging out a lot. We didn’t even realise when we’d started dating,” she says. “I had a feeling that he was going to be in my life the first time I saw him. It was a very different, surreal feeling.”

The two bonded over their shared value system and love of electronic music. Eight months into their relationship, Jhangiani proposed while having lunch with Jain’s parents in Jaipur. “He was over for lunch one day, and at the end of our meal, he just went, ‘Aavriti, will you marry me?’ in front of my parents. We all just froze because we were caught off guard. I didn’t even give him a yes or a no because we couldn’t stop laughing,” she recalls. The pair continued to see each other and the real (and final) proposal took place in Goa in August, on the evening of Jain’s birthday while on a trek with their closest friends. “Of course, this time, my entire family was in on it,” she laughs.

Following the engagement, the pair had only two and a half months to plan their November wedding. When it came to zeroing in on the venue, there was only one option. Jain shares that she grew up dreaming about having her wedding at Rambagh Palace in Jaipur. “I literally had it written in my journal: that I would have my wedding at Rambagh and the theme would be all white. I’d discussed it with my friends when we were in the eighth or ninth grade, so it had to be there,” she says.

The festivities began with a mehendi ceremony at the Jai Mahal Palace. For the occasion, the bride wore a maroon crushed-cotton lehenga with no embellishments and opted for a minimal mehendi design. She paired her simple outfit with jewellery she’d designed alongside her father, inspired by vintage folk Rajasthani styles. It included a pair of heavy earrings with kanautis that featured strands of pearls that went in her hair, authentic Rajasthani bajubandhs, and a stack of bangles.

The mehendi was followed by the sangeet the same evening—an intimate affair hosted at her sister and brother-in-law’s home. “I never liked the idea of having a sangeet with people performing like you’re at the IIFA awards in an auditorium,” she says. Instead, the floor was open for all their friends and families to dance, and the highlight of the evening was a series of tear-jerking speeches from the couple’s friends. “It was so beautiful, because otherwise we never really get a chance to speak about or hear what people really mean to you. We were all bawling, and it was a very special moment,” Jain reminisces.

For the main event, the pheras at sunset at Rambagh Palace, both the bride and groom wore ivory ensembles. Jhangiani’s simple achkan was accessorised with heirloom buttons and a multi-layered pearl number. Jain’s lehenga was designed by her and featured embroidery that had been upcycled from her grandmother’s saris. “I chose off-white because it just made so much sense with the theme of Dhora brides. It’s a colour that aligns with my own aesthetic, not just the brand’s, and I wanted to embrace that,” she explains. All the guests in attendance, including the two families, were also dressed in shades of white for the affair.

The bride’s jewellery was a mix of heirloom pieces and jewellery that she and her team had designed. “The karigars were so excited about our wedding and they wanted to design something special for me. So, we all got together and designed the jewellery,” she shares. For the ceremony, Jain layered an antique gold choker with polki diamond necklaces of varying lengths. On her hands, she wore mismatched bangles, some inherited from her grandmother and others new, crafted with love by Dhora’s karigars. She accessorised her lehenga with long belts of charms featuring stones and ashrafi coins, which Dhora is known for. “My father designed this long clip-on accessory for the lehenga, with stones he had been collecting for years, which made it so special,” she reveals. “It was like a handmade, filled-with-love kind of wedding. Every piece of jewellery, every detail, was deeply meaningful. I can’t find the right words to describe it, but it was truly magical. I don’t know when there’ll be another day when I will see a room filled with all the people I love, with everyone on the same frequency. I always wondered what all this meant before, and now I know and I’m grateful each day.”