The Same-Sex Marriage of Pavana and Gabriel

The Mint2Be Team had the privilege to plan the same-sex marriage of Pavana Tiriveedhi and Gabriel Willey. Pavana, a physician from California, and Gabriel, a native Vermonter tied the knot at the prestigious Taj Hotel facing the beautiful gardens of Boston Commons on September 6, 2015.

For their wedding, the couple booked the Taj Boston Hotel as it is not only a fine luxury hotel but a place that can accommodate Indian traditions such as having an open fire, an integral part of the traditional wedding ceremony as well as in house Indian catering. To ease the difficulties of coordinating a Boston wedding from California, they looked to secure the expertise of a wedding planning service. After hearing from many sources they chose Mint To Be Events, a subsidiary of Boston Sound and Light Company LLC, a popular wedding vendor in the Indian wedding circuit within New England.

The goal was simple. Get married in a traditional Hindu ceremony, have Indian music and culture be prominent throughout the event and allow everyone to have as much fun as they possibly can without just a “Gay” theme. Easy, right? Unfortunately the first obstacle was to find an Indian priest willing to perform a Hindu ceremony for a gay couple. Despite being rejected 6 times, the planners were able to procure an Indian priest to perform the ceremony, a welcome sign of the changing Indian culture. The second difficulty lay in coordinating the ceremony itself as many of the traditions are not designed for two grooms. After consultations with the priest, parents and the M2B planners, we were able to come up with gender neutral versions of all the main ceremonies.

The ceremony consisted of traditional Indian décor with greenery and plants followed by a cocktail hour. As a recognition of the mixed union, the cocktail hour featured a blend of western Jazz and Indian Classical music performed by Phil Scarf of Natraj Entertainment. The dinner reception consisted a 3-foot Taj Mahal cake, a 3-course plated Indian dinner, and a dancer to perform Bharatanatyam (classical Indian Dance) during the dinner reception which provide an additional Indian classical touch. You could see the guests following along in amazement and grace of the dancer. Following the dinner was the dance reception on the Taj rooftop with an ice cream sundae station, crepes station, and French fries station. All events include Pavana and Gabriel’s passion of traveling from customized luggage tags as favors, escort cards, the escort card display, table numbers, and even vintage frames throughout the rooftop of various cities they have visited together. Lastly, Boston Sound and Light was able to blend the traditional and modern together by converting the room into a nightclub with lit up furniture and music so guests could dance the night away!