For Shweta Kapur, the wedding after-party was the main event

It’s probably one of the most considered outfit changes—what will a bride wear as she goes from the wedding ceremony to the dance floor? For designer Shweta Kapur, who married entrepreneur Raghav Gupta earlier this month in New Delhi, the answer was simple: “I wanted to move away from the heavy wedding lehenga as soon as possible. My brief to Mohit [stylist Mohit Rai] and myself was simply to have fun with what I was wearing.”

The result was one of her own signature draped skirts that she paired with a scallop-edged silver blouse and finished with a silver dupatta and jade slippers. “It felt so light and comfortable—honestly, it felt like nothing compared to the heavier bridal clothes. Despite having volume and embroidery, it was so easy to move in, which was exactly what I needed to feel ready to party,” says the bride. When it came to styling the ensemble, Kapur was clear she wanted to wear the same jewellery she wore at the wedding ceremony—a multi-layered emerald-and-diamond necklace and an emerald maang tika from Sri Rama Hari Ram Jewellers.

As the founder of the label 431-88, Kapur has a reputation for creating looks that are the perfect accompaniment to the main wedding event—pre-draped saris, sultry slip dresses, asymmetric skirts, and playful going-out tops. At her mehendi, all her bridesmaids, including model Neha Kapur, content creator Amrita Thakur, and designer Kanika Goyal, wore cocktail saris by 431-88 in an array of colours.

While her wedding lehenga was a sage-green ensemble from Jade by Monica & Karishma and her red mehendi look was a mashup of pieces from Pankaj & Nidhi and Kunal Rawal, Kapur opted to wear her own designs for both the after-party and the cocktail reception—an ivory sari with a pearl-embellished organza cape and pearl kaliras—that took place the next day. “The focus was more on fun, freedom, and comfort,” she says.

The designer began planning her wedding looks just two months before the big day. “When you work in fashion, you know you can manage to pull things together, especially since most of the clothes were done by friends or in-house,” she admits. The planning went right down to the wire, though—she first saw the finished after-party look just the day before the wedding, and the cocktail sari on the day itself. 

The wedding celebrations and the reception took place at Amaara Farms in Chattarpur. Once the pheras wound up outdoors, guests moved inside for the after party to an ethereal space decorated with scrolls of sheer textiles printed with images of pressed flowers, which hung from the ceiling. “I wanted to create an atmosphere where memories were honoured while we let loose and had fun,” she says. In keeping with that vibe, she got the the DJ to play a set filled with old-school hip-hop tunes.

For many brides, the after-party is the chance to finally celebrate the events of the day, to have fun after spending hours posing for photographs or waiting for rituals to end in a dramatic wedding outfit that prioritises design over comfort. Says Kapur, “Once the ceremony is over, there’s this overwhelming sense of relief. The after-party is when you finally feel mentally free and relaxed, ready to truly let go and enjoy yourself.”