How My Dream Wedding Was Caught Between Astrologers and Doctors
The day my high school sweetheart proposed to me was the best day of my life. He got down on one knee at the same spot he had asked me to prom seven years before, and from that moment everything just felt so magical.
We soon began planning my dream wedding. We managed to get an amazing venue on the auspicious dates, along with all the vendors I wanted to work with. We even took a quick trip to India with my family to buy all our outfits for our wedding events, again getting designer outfits of my dreams.
Everything was just going so perfectly.
Then this global pandemic hit so hard like no one could have imagined. My girlfriends and I landed back home from my bachelorette trip from Florida (which in hindsight was probably not the smartest decision on our end) and the country fell into lockdown.
I was instantly forced to cancel my bridal shower since it fell in the lockdown calendar. The constant worry of this virus flooded my emotions and I kept questioning if this would go away in the two months we had until our wedding. All our family and friends assured us this would not go on for two months.
On the one hand, our family astrologers were saying the pandemic will go away by a certain date, and on the other, we had doctors tell us this will be an ongoing issue until the end of the summer. We were torn.
After much thought and consideration for our friends and family we felt it was the safest decision to postpone our wedding. I worked with all our vendors to reschedule and most of them were able to work the day out for me.
A slight hiccup hit my dream that was flowing so flawlessly. And as the much-anticipated countdown approached less than 50 days, we had to reset the countdown.
I met Aakash in a high school AP Biology class in Paramus, New Jersey. Since then, weâve grown up together and grown into being soul mates.
As I went away to college, our relationship became slightly more difficult as Aakash commuted to Rutgers Newark, while I stayed on campus at Rutgers New Brunswick.
But we made it work and here we are eight years later getting ready to tie the knot. We have bought a house together and are waiting to be able to legally get married so we can move in together.
Through this all, I remain positive and keep my eyes on the larger picture â marrying the man of my dreams. My dream wedding will still happen, I just have to wait a little bit longer.
Ragi Patel, 26, is an accountant, and her fiancé Aakash Shah, 25, is a financial analyst in New Jersey.