When I watch this film I want to laugh, cry, dance, and more than anything, revisit these wonderful two days that we spent with Riga and Ash. They are simply adorable and such a beautiful couple. We are so very honored and thrilled to have made this short film for them to enjoy with their family and friends. Venues included Nestldown, the brides home, San Jose Gurudwara, and Silver Creek Clountry Club.

Sit back, turn up your speakers, and enjoy!

Riga and Ash from Vijay Rakhra on Vimeo.

Last weekend we had an amazing time photographing Hiral and Shailo’s Garba at the Livermore Community Center. They had a live band, three amazing Mehndi artists, and tons of Garba dancing! There were a lot of first timers that got to learn Garba and they had a great time experiencing something new. Hiral and Shailo are so fun and have such great families and friends. We look forward to sharing their wedding images with you in the next post but for now, scroll down and enjoy their Garba images!

Happy Friday! I am so happy the beautiful weather is here and wedding season is in full swing! We have an amazing year lined up with the most amazing couples! We are going to rock it every single weekend and keep pushing our imagery further and further!

I am so excited to share Riga and Ash’s Sikh Ceremony and Reception today! They got married at the San Jose Sikh Gurduwara, my all time favorite Sikh Temple in the entire state! After the wedding we went to Riga’s house for some games before heading over to Silver Creek Country Club for their lovely Reception. Silver Creek is an amazing venue and place to do photographs with the family and bridal party and we highly recommend it for Indian weddings.

I could write a ton about how much fun we had at this wedding. Both Riga and Ash’s family are amazing and we loved capturing all the emotions, excitement, details, and these stunning portraits. We hope you enjoy our Indian wedding photography and cinematic films and look forward to more of your great comments which we absolutely love to read!

The Mehndi party is always one of my favorite parts of Indian Weddings. It is all the bride’s close family and friends that get together and just hang out and talk, sing, and dance. The bride gets to relax and sit down for about three hours and get her hands and feet adorned to make her even more beautiful for the wedding day.

Ravie Kattaura, one of the Bay Area’s best Mehndi artists was there to put the Mehndi on Karan and the design came out amazing. Check out some of our favorite images below and let us know what you think!

Last week was a fun one! We spent five days with our lucky couple and photographed and filmed all their events including the Bride’s Mehndi night, the Bride and Groom’s respective Maiyan ceremonies, the Bride’s Choora ceremony, as well as, both their Sangeet nights! The fourth day was the wedding at the San Jose Gurudwara, followed by their reception on the final day at the Scottish Rite Center in Oakland, CA. This was the most expansive project we have ever tackled. With so many events over so many days, with a lot of team members covering these events, it was no easy task. I am so excited that we pulled it off and have this amazing same day edit to show for it!

Each night we had to back up our memory cards and encode the video files for editing. We had to play close attention to organization as multiple cameras were used at multiple events. Each night we would rough cut some of our selections but the real editing was basically done Saturday night after the ceremony and was completed just an hour or so before we showed the edit live in front of about 700 guests on two projectors.

For the final highlights we will add the reception portion to this film and will also be doing a long form video of all the events and wedding ceremony and reception.

If you would like a same day edit of your Indian wedding in the San Francisco Bay Area give us a call! We really enjoy the satisfaction of sharing what we capture with our audience immediately after the event and it is great entertainment for your guests!

Sit back and enjoy our edit! We suggest you hit “play”, then “pause” to let it load and then hit “play” again if you have a slower internet connection.

After a beautiful Blessing Ceremony at Nestldown, Riga and Ash made their way back to Riga’s parents house for their Sangeet. It was a ton of fun to see so many British people watching at Ash got the yellow paste all over him. Their commentary was great and it reminded me of how cool and colorful these customs are. Ash did extremely well and there were so many smiles and laughter that our job was quite easy.

After the Maiyan portion, Riga got her bangles, which is known as Choora. These bangles she is to wear for a period of time (sometimes 40 days) after the wedding and they are traditionally red, gold, and white.

My favorite portion of the evening was the Jaago. During this time everyone takes turns carrying an ornate container (usually filled with water), that has candles on top. They pass it around to all the friends and family and it makes for some really cool photos. Again, with so many really fun British guests, this was not your typical Indian party and I am glad it was as multi-cultural as it was. It pretty much made it more fun!

Enjoy some of our favorite images, out of the hundreds we also loved!

We had an amazing time working with Aditi and Raghav last month at their wedding reception at the Santa Clara Marriott Hotel. They were married in India but had a party here in the Bay for their friends that could not make it to India. With Raghav being a stand up comedian, there was never a dull moment with these two! Sit back and enjoy this highlights of their reception!

What a stunning wedding, or blessing ceremony this was! Riga and Ash coordinated a two day event, filled with customs and ceremonies from India and the US (Britain). The first day started with a very special Blessing Ceremony at my all time favorite venue, Nestldown. Ash’s sister officiated the ceremony with her husband and it was a very beautiful event. We had a lot of time to take photos around the grounds thanks to Brooke, who is the coordinator at Nestldown and is so on top of things you cannot help but to love her!

Even though it was raining in the morning we managed to get all these stunning images. We cannot wait to share the rest of their events with you coming right up in the next post!

Last week I had a ton of fun working one of my lovely couples for the pre-wedding engagement shoot. They will have a three day wedding in June and we are super excited for it! For their E-Session they wanted to incorporate the school they both attended, UC Berkeley. I love shooting at this location because this school has it all! We walked into a beautiful grove full of Eucalyptus and Redwood trees to start it off easy and casual. By simply having them walk through the trees we got some fabulous shots with the light streaming through the branches.Just a few feet away we had a stream as well that worked for a great background.

We chose the library for a few shots, because not only are they fun to use as props and shoot down aisles etc, but also because although they went to UC Berkeley together, they never knew each other during their school years. It was only after college that they met and fell in love and decided to get married. So using the library as a storytelling tool, we see that they are both there but not necessarily noticing each other. He is checking her out and she does not notice. For fun, we had them play with the books and start to be together, but the initial motivation for some of the shots was directly related to their personal story.

All the buildings at this school have a ton of character. Since they have been built over time, they all have a time period of their own, everything from over 100 years old to the just recently opened Engineer school for example. My absolute favorite building is the Miner’s building, where students learn about various stones and metals. The ceiling is amazing with the windows allowing natural light in for the entire building.

I love symmetry in my images and UC Berkeley has a lot of it. For all students and recent grads getting married, I highly recommend choosing this location for your engagement session if you liked your college years and the education you received!

Scroll down to see some of my favorite images and stay tuned for their beautiful wedding images to be on the blog in June!

It has been more common lately for us to be hired for weddings where there are two wedding ceremonies! The most recent was Divya and Sukham’s gorgeous wedding that took place in San Francisco at the Palace Hotel. It was originally planned to be at the Westin St. Francis but due to a huge conference the same weekend, they moved it over to the Palace Hotel. Everything was gorgeous thanks to Amrit and her amazing design skills.

Our couple was drop dead gorgeous and we are so excited to share these two films with you! The first is a the highlights reel which is a recap of the entire wedding day cut to the music of the couple’s choice. It is so fun to watch in just a few short minutes and because of the length, it’s very easy to stream on the web and share with friends and family around the world!

The film below here is the Cinematic Feature Film. In this case the total length is about 20 minutes and it is the wedding film from the event. It shows more of everything, including the ceremony and reception, but is still short enough to engage an audience and prevent the viewer from wanting to hit fast forward. In addition to this film the client will also receive a basic edited version of their ceremony and reception program.

To inquire about our films for your wedding or event in the Bay Area, please send us an email and we will get back to you as soon as possible. If you are already a client and would like this short form documentary instead of a very long video, please also let us know and we will see what we can do to swap that for you!

Have a great weekend!