Andrew & Rupa Held a Total of 7 Events For Their Destination Wedding in Kampala!

With Lake Victoria as their backdrop!

Andrew and Rupa chose to have a “personal, meaningful and entertaining” (as she describes it) wedding ceremony, and that meant a romantic getaway with family and friends with Lake Victoria as their backdrop. Since Rupa’s dad was born in Uganda, this trip to Kampala was special.

How they met

We met through a mutual friend and started dating in 2013.

The proposal

Andrew picked me up from the station after work and was taking me home to have dinner with my parents. When we pulled up to the house, the whole garden was lit up with lights, candles and roses. Andrew got down on one knee and proposed and told me he is taking me to New York the next day.

Planning the wedding

I always wanted a destination wedding and it was my dads dream that I got married in his place of birth Uganda. We were very lucky that a good family friend of ours Sudhir Ruparelia owned a beautiful report in Kampala called Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort. Both mine and Andrews family travelled to Uganda to see the venue and start planning the wedding in May 2017. As soon as we got there we loved the resort and knew we wanted to get married there. Sheena Ruparelia, the daughter of Sudhir Ruparelia had experience in planning hers and her sister wedding at the resort and took the role of our wedding planner. We worked with her for most of the year on themes, entertainments, décor, food and drinks. Having a wedding in Uganda meant that anything was possible, we made sure each event had a different theme and Sheena and her team pulled out all the stops for each event. We did take a few suppliers from the UK which included our DJ Ravi Dattani part of RV sounds who had the party going every day, My make up artist – Sophia Aafreen would did an amazing job on not only my hair an make up but also my mum and sisters, and we had brilliant live singers come in from Kenya – Sodhi and team. Cake was done by Mira Marsani based in Uganda.I loved planning the theme and décor for each event, as I mentioned there was not limit to what could be done in Uganda and the Ruparelia team made it all possible. I was able to be very creative with each event and make them all very unique.

The events

We had 7 events which were all very different:

1 – welcome party which was an African themed party, we had Africans drummers, singers and dancers, traditional African food and amazing African décor.
2 – Pithi – traditional pithi ceremony beautifully decorated with pink and orange colours
3- Sangeet -rajasthani theme event which an mind blowing set, I came in on a dholi which all my brothers were carrying, we had various dances and speechs at this event and Sodhi the singer from Kenya.
4 – indian wedding – set by lake Victoria, with a red rose mandup. The ceremony was not a traditional indian wedding and was carried out by my cousin Sawan Gandesha, it was personal, meaningful and entertaining.
5 – pool party – this was a Ibiza themed pool party. everyone was wearing white , Andrew and I came in on a boat. We had massage ladies, a live band and music on till early ours in the morning.
6 – civil ceremony – this was in a stunning location in the resort over looking the lake.
7 – reception – this was by the pool, it was decorated with white roses, candles and was a very romantic setting. we had a lovely fire work display, speeches, and a great DJ playing till early hours in the morning.

Welcome party