A lodge in Nepal, taken over for the Sangeet and the wedding. Two best friends, two family traditions, and around 150 people flying in from three continents.
The proposal we wrote for a real couple, before their wedding. Their names, venue and dates are changed.
Contents
01
First, the feeling
Where we'd start
It should feel like everyone has come home for the holidays.
Home means two things here: friends and family coming back to one another, and the bride coming back to the landscape she grew up around. The days should move the way time at home does. Food is out before anyone asks. Drinks keep arriving. People drift between conversations without being told where to sit. The one exception is the ceremony: the only time everyone needs to be in the same place, at the same time, paying attention.
What we heard
A decade, two best friendsYou were friends long before you were a couple, and it's felt easy since day one. The friendship is older than the relationship, and it deserves as much of this wedding as the marriage does.
Home is people coming backGrowing up away at school, home meant the holidays: a full house, a lot of food, everyone back at once. Now your people are scattered across continents. Once they arrive, it should feel like that again.
Summers somewhere slowWhat you love about your favorite holidays isn't the view, it's the pace. Drinks arriving all day. Nobody in a hurry, nobody managing anyone. You've taken over the whole property for the Sangeet and the wedding, so you can build exactly that.
Two traditions, one decision madeYou come from two Nepali communities with different expectations for the ceremony. The ceremony under the tree, in red, is settled. What's still open is which rituals matter, which can sit side by side, and which belong to your families but not to this wedding.
The one thing we'd flag
Four days, and each one needs its own job. If the first night and the wedding night are both "big party", the second one feels like a repeat. You need a high, a quiet center, a day with nothing in it, and one that belongs to your parents.
The SangeetHigh · everyone meets
The weddingReverence · the one to watch
The free dayExhale · nothing scheduled
The receptionTheirs · your parents'
Your four days
Day one · Dissolve the strangers
The Sangeet
Ten years of you, in one room.
Evening · around 150 · the lodge
Her side, his side, the friends from abroad, cousins from three continents. The night is really about a decade together: the people who saw it begin, next to the people who've watched it grow.
Three connected choices shape the night:
Outdoors, indoors, or both? Outdoors means starting early, while there's light, and the setting does much of the decorating. Indoors gives you control, but you have to build the atmosphere yourselves. Or both: cocktails outside, then in for the performances.
How formal? A stage, an order of performances and an MC, or something looser? Either way, someone has to run the night, and with 150 guests they need to be good on a microphone. A funny friend is not always a good MC.
When does everyone eat? Dinner during performances splits attention. Dinner after runs very late. Or substantial snacks with cocktails, an early dinner, then performances that lead straight onto the dance floor.
Our instinct: keep it outdoors. Cocktails and proper food around five, fire dancers at dusk, an early dinner, then a tightly run Sangeet that turns straight into dancing.
Day two · Reverence · the one to watch
The wedding
Under the tree, in red.
Daytime into evening · around 150
The one point across four days that should be quiet, slow and easy to follow before anything else starts. Some kind of celebration follows once it's done.
Because everyone is staying in the same place, the bride's family actually gets to see her after the ceremony, rather than her being sent off to the groom's side the way most Nepali weddings go. That's rare. Celebrate it.
The open question is the space around the tree. There are two ways in:
The familiar version. Ivory and green florals hanging from the branches, a soft mandap beneath the canopy, layers of brass. Easy to execute well, and the default at almost every property like this one.
Your version. You described an enchanted forest. That could mean anything, so before a decorator answers it with more green flowers, decide what makes the forest specific to you: work from local makers, clay and painted detail from the villages nearby, handwoven mats instead of a mirrored aisle, brass, clay, straw and fruit with restrained florals. And maybe one quiet reference to where her family is from.
How our founder, Shaibyaa, found hers
I knew I wanted my decor to feel deeply Nepali, without mountains and prayer flags. What unlocked it was getting specific: not just Nepal, but a particular place, and then a memory within it. For me, that was my parents' stories of old Kathmandu in the eighties.
"Nepali-inspired" is not a brief. "My parents' Kathmandu in the eighties" is.
Day three · Exhale
The free day
Nothing to be at.
Whoever's still there · no itinerary
Probably the only stretch when everyone you love is together with no pressure left. The wedding's done, the photographs are done. Something outdoors would be lovely, but the point is time with these people, not the activity.
This is the day they'll talk about most, and the one you'll probably enjoy most too. Don't fill it.
Day four · Theirs, entirely
The reception
Hand this one to your parents.
Your parents' guests · traditional
Their event, their guest list, their format. You show up, you're generous, and you let it be theirs.
1 of 4
02
What matters to you, and our advice
Three things you told us matter, where they usually go wrong, and what we'd do.
01
Nobody managing anyone
What goes wrong
Food comes in one sitting, the bar has a queue, and there are long gaps where guests wait to be told what's next. It starts to feel like an event, not a holiday.
What we'd do
Continuous food and drink at the lodge, carried to people rather than queued for. And nobody has to drive anywhere: once guests arrive, everything they need is on the property.
What we hear from guests
What people actually remember about other weddings: whether there was enough food to soak up the alcohol, enough bartenders, and whether things started on time. Almost none of it costs much.
02
A ceremony that's unmistakably yours
What goes wrong
A phrase like "enchanted forest" gets handed to a decorator, and comes back as the same ivory and green they've built at this property a dozen times.
What we'd do
Decide what the phrase means to you before anyone designs it. Pick two or three references with a story behind them, and if you go the familiar route, make sure one thing in the space could only be yours.
03
Two families, two sets of expectations
What goes wrong
Nobody decides which rituals happen, so both families assume theirs. It surfaces a month out, when every conversation is already tense.
What we'd do
List every ritual from both sides now. Mark which matter to you, which can sit side by side, and which can happen at home instead. Then have the conversation with both sets of parents early.
Question for you: which ritual are you most worried about raising with your families?
03
Things you might not be thinking about yet
Three things that are easy to miss, and matter for you.
1. Getting everyone there
Getting to the lodge means a second, less familiar journey after Kathmandu, so guests will have more questions the closer it gets. Hire a travel agent or coordinator to handle the questions, bookings, transfers and the inevitable last-minute changes. Even with a planner, this is rarely something they do well. Depending on how bookings are set up, it may not cost you anything extra.
2. The roles to hand off
The shadowRuns each day in your place: knows the plan, keeps time, solves problems before they reach you.
The MCSomeone genuinely good on a microphone, for the Sangeet especially. Not just the funniest friend.
Family bridgeSomeone from each side who knows which rituals are happening and can answer the aunties.
Bar watcherKeeps an eye on the alcohol across the Sangeet and the wedding, so it doesn't run out or over budget.
3. Small things that matter at a forest property
Mosquito repellent, visibly everywhere. Nobody brings enough of their own.
Lighting after dark. If the Sangeet is outdoors, decide where the light comes from before you decide the flowers.
04
Ways we can work together
Use whichever is useful. We sit on your side of the table, and we never take a cut from a vendor.
01GuidebooksGuides for wherever you are in planning.$99
02My WeddingYour four days, vendors and decisions in one place.
03AdvisoryA proposal like this one, written for you, and sessions on the decor, guest experience, the right vendors and the run sheet.
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Same method, different couple
No two of these look alike
This one is about two best friends and a lodge where everyone comes home for four days. The other is our founder Shaibyaa's own: three days in Sri Lanka, two families meeting for the first time, and a bride who couldn't stop planning. Same method. Almost nothing else in common.