Raj & Jocelyn

Three days. A garden, a beach, an agave field.

Punjab, and Jalisco

Raj's family keeps the Punjabi rites — the henna, the jaggo, the turmeric. Jocelyn's family is from here, from the coast. Nobody asked either side to give anything up, and the week was built so both got their full ceremony rather than a polite half of one.

What follows is the running order as it happened.

Day one — Mehndi, then the Jaggo

Henna first, in the afternoon, quiet.

Then the garden went dark and the jaggo — “wake up” — began: relative after relative balancing the gaggar, a brass pot ringed with lit candles, on their head, a dhol under everything, the boliyan answered back in a circle. It runs late on purpose. Nobody in that village is allowed to sleep through a wedding.

Day two — Haldi on the beach

Everyone in yellow. Turmeric and mustard oil pressed onto the couple by their families — maiyan — under a red phulkari four cousins held overhead against the sun. Grandmothers went first, and were the least gentle about it.

It ended in the Pacific, all of them, still yellow.

Day three — the wedding at Finca 18

Vows on the lawn at Finca 18, a working agave distillery out at Las Juntas, under an arch built in fuchsia, marigold and coral. Jocelyn's mehndi was still dark on her hands, under white lace.

Portraits in the agave rows afterwards. Dinner in the open hall, a charro singer with a rope, and a dance floor that never once decided between Punjabi and Mexican.

Planning a Punjabi, Sikh or Hindu wedding in Puerto Vallarta?

Direct flights from the US and Canada, villas that will give you a garden for a sangeet and a beach for a haldi on consecutive days, vendors who cater vegetarian for three hundred, and long golden afternoons from January to May. What matters on my side is knowing the running order before it starts. Tell me your dates.

Wedding planner: Magnifique Weddings, Puerto Vallarta · Venue: Finca 18, Las Juntas · Photography & film: Julien Leveau — Arcencielstudio