A Bali Wedding Built Entirely Around A Poem The Groom Wrote Four Years Before He Proposed!

Here's a wedding with a plot twist: every single detail — the colours, the outfits, the food, even the event names — was mapped to a poem Abhinav wrote for Aditi back in 2022. Called "The Sapling," the poem became the literal blueprint for their four-day Bali wedding, with each stanza reinterpreted into a full-blown event. Folk India tones for the roots. Psychedelic mushrooms for the chaos of adolescence (read: Sangeet). A blossoming purple tree for the wedding day itself. Oh, and their hashtag? They lit it on fire. On a beach. At night. Our fave detail — an antarpat hand-painted with the red handprints of all 220 guests, so that literally everyone they love stood between them before the veil dropped. Poetic, in every sense.

Meet Aditi and Abhinav

"We matched on Hinge in 2020. Abhinav was writing me these long, genuine paragraphs full of heart, and I was not looking for anything serious at the time, so I promptly ghosted him," laughs the bride.

A year and a half later, fate (or rather, a mutual friend's apartment) brought them face to face — Abhinav's roommate's girlfriend and Aditi's childhood friend turned out to be the same person. Less than a week later, their first date stretched past six hours and ended at Taco Bell, deep in conversation about "The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows" — a book of invented words for feelings the English language never quite named. They got stuck on one word in particular: aftersome, the astonishment of realising the unlikely chain of events that led you somewhere extraordinary. Five years later, aftersome became the name of one of their wedding events.

Welcome Night

Aditi opened the weekend in a custom ivory off-shoulder mermaid gown by Evable Designs, complete with a cathedral-length trailing dupatta — Western silhouette, Indian drama. Abhinav went full runway in a white wrap-style blazer with a draped crossover lapel, layered over a sheer cut-out top, finished with a vintage bee brooch — the first appearance of the bee motif that would follow them through the entire weekend. Later that night, the couple lit their hashtag, #KabhiKabhiAditi, on fire on the beach.

Haldi

This was the "roots" chapter of the poem, so the palette went muted and elemental — sun, water, earth, air — against terracotta clay walls for a folk-India feel. Both wore vermillion red kalamkari pieces hand-painted with imagery of Krishna, Radha and Krishna's cattle by Aindhri by Mahitha, a nod to Abhinav's surname Gopalan (another name for Krishna) and his years playing the flute. Guests pressed their hands in red onto a cloth that would later become the couple's antarpat — every person they love, literally woven into the wedding.

Sangeet

If Haldi was about roots, the Sangeet was chaos — adolescence, friendship, the wonderfully messy years that shape you. So the friends took the stage, and the theme went full psychedelic mushroom (the poem's "spore" that attacks the sapling). The couple wore custom BoboCalcutta pieces from his Forest of Illusion collection — maximalist, surrealist, sequinned like a fever dream. Aditi's lehenga hid a tiny embroidered portrait of her dog Monk, who couldn't make the trip but made it into the outfit anyway.

Wedding

The union of two entities — the tree (Aditi) and the bee ("Abhi") — meant this was the visual climax of the whole poem. Aditi wore a traditional Kanjeevaram purple silk saree from Mavvuri Silks, its blouse hand-embroidered with a golden bee by Tanva by Deepika, who was handed the poem and given full creative rein. Rather than a bridal veil on her head, Aditi had one attached to her pallu instead — a dramatic golden-champagne train trailing behind her as she walked down the aisle. Abhinav went all-purple: a sleeveless vest with gold bee embroidery on the front and a golden tree on the back, paired with a matching dhoti, stole and custom purple velvet loafers.

The ceremony itself carried its own quiet poetry. Aditi placed her late mother's purple silk saree beside her photograph at the mandap — the exact saree she was wearing in the picture. And when the antarpat, hand-painted with a blossoming tree, a golden bee and the handprints of all 220 guests, was lowered between the couple, it felt like everyone they loved was standing right there with them before they finally saw each other.

Reception

The finale was all about community — the "forest of love" their union had grown into. Aditi sparkled in a mint green strapless lehenga with a crystal-embellished corset and cascading skirt, while Abhinav matched her energy in a custom navy velvet sherwani with silver metal appliqué. Both from QBik, both very much red-carpet coded.

About The Wedding

Aditi grew up in San Francisco, Abhinav in Miami — both raised around water, so a coastal wedding was never up for debate. But more than a pretty backdrop, they wanted somewhere that felt spiritually alive, and Bali's deep reverence for nature and ritual made it an easy yes.

The real magic, though, was structural. Instead of four disconnected events, the couple used "The Sapling" — a poem Abhinav wrote Aditi back in 2022 — as the backbone for the entire weekend. They broke the poem into four sections, decoded the emotional core of each, and let that dictate everything from the colour palette to the food to the outfits. It's the kind of concept that could easily have felt gimmicky, but by all accounts, it landed — turning a four-day wedding into one continuous, deeply personal story.

The couple also leaned hard into personalisation over tradition-for-tradition's-sake: an officiant who reframed rituals through a queer, feminist lens; a wedding website and guest app Abhinav coded from scratch, complete with live leaderboards, a "Who Knows Us Best?" Bingo game, and a "Honeymoon Game" letting guests vote on their destination; and vow books the couple hand-bound themselves. As Abhinav put it at the Welcome Night — "this is as much your wedding as it is ours."

Vendor Reviews

Venue: Sofitel, Nusa Dua, Bali

Walking into the hotel and seeing its giant "Tree of Life" structure in the atrium, we knew this had to be the backdrop for our poem. Our hotel manager Prilia ensured every dream we had was executed, with guest experience always the priority.

Wedding Planning: Varawedding★ 5

either of us had been to Bali before our wedding, so we had to make every decision sight unseen — and Faisal Ansari made that possible. He was our real genie all weekend; "no" simply doesn't exist in his vocabulary. We came out of this with a friend for life.

Photography: Infinite Memories★ 4.8

We spent six months on calls with the team, ideating how to bring our poem to life on camera. Our guests' favourite moment all weekend, hands down, was the Same Day Edit — our own narration of the poem laid over clips from the wedding.

Decor: Aisle Project ★ 5

Since our entire wedding was built around a poem, we needed a decorator who could truly understand it — and Regina Saschia did exactly that. Every event felt alive because of the magic she built with us.

Vendor Credits: Venue: Sofitel, Nusa Dua, Bali | Wedding Planning: Varawedding★ 5 | Photography & Films: Infinite Memories★ 4.8 | Decor: Aisle Project ★ 5 | Makeup (Bridal Party): Fikri Halim & Team | Makeup (Bride): Dinesh Nair & Gajen, blushbeautybeyond | Mehendi Artist: Ima Habsyi | Officiant: Dr. Raja Gopal Bhattar | DJ: DJ Xirex | Outfit Styling: Ashwin Mawle & Hassan Khan | Outfits: Welcome Night: Evable Designs (bride), custom by Ashwin Mawle & Hassan Khan (groom), Haldi: Aindhri by Mahitha, Sangeet: BoboCalcutta, Wedding: Mavvuri Silks & Tanva by Deepika (bride), Raamz (groom), Reception: QBik