This wedding in New Delhi was a beautiful blend of Punjabi and Kashmiri Pandit traditions
Asna Oberoi and Vedant Jailkhani’s wedding brought together family-led rituals and personalised elements
Asna Oberoi and Vedant Jailkhani approached their wedding in New Delhi with a strong sense of what mattered to them. By the time they decided to marry, both were clear that the experience had to feel expansive without becoming exhausting. Family, cultural continuity and time spent meaningfully with the people they love took precedence over staging a big fat desi wedding.
Oberoi and Jailkhani were both born and raised in New Delhi, though their personal worlds developed along very different lines. Oberoi works in marketing and social media and has built a career consulting for luxury brands, a path that gradually evolved into her role as a luxury and lifestyle content creator. Fashion has long been central to her life, which meant that for her wedding, working with designers she had personal relationships with felt natural rather than strategic. Jailkhani comes from the FMCG industry and runs his own bakery line while working in raw-material procurement. "Even though our professions are poles apart,” Oberoi says, “they balance each other in a way that’s always felt natural.”
They met seven years ago at Pearl Academy. Oberoi was a fresher in her first week on campus, still orienting herself to the space. Jailkhani was a senior, quieter, already settled into college life and serving as the treasurer. Oberoi first noticed him moving through campus with his team, selling bus tickets for the fresher’s party. What she didn’t know then was that he had noticed her too.
At the party, Jailkhani made sure Oberoi was crowned Miss Fresher. He placed the tiara on her head himself. Soon after, proximity did the rest. Jailkhani was also close friends with Oberoi’s cousin, which meant their paths crossed daily between classes, corridors and shared social circles. They were opposites in temperament. Oberoi was extroverted and expressive, while Jailkhani was reserved and observant. Over time, the dynamic settled and they began dating in 2019.
After college, their timelines aligned again in an unexpected way. “We both planned to pursue our master’s, and unexpectedly thanks to COVID and shifting timelines, our courses aligned, taking us both to London. That year in London became the heart of our story,” adds Oberoi. Living independently in a new city, navigating early adulthood and spending extended time together deepened their relationship. During Oberoi’s graduation, Jailkhani travelled to be there and met her parents in person to ask for their blessing and her hand in marriage. “Watching my parents meet him, grow comfortable with him, and embrace him with so much warmth felt like the final affirmation that this was always meant to be,” she says.
When it came to planning the wedding, practicality played an early role. Oberoi comes from a large joint family, while Jailkhani’s family is smaller and more intimate. Although Oberoi had once liked the idea of a destination wedding, the reality of hosting hundreds of relatives made New Delhi the obvious choice. “I had seen hosts at destination weddings completely exhausted,” she says. “I knew I needed rest to actually enjoy my wedding.” This allowed events to be spaced out, rest to be protected and each celebration to stand on its own.
Oberoi led the creative vision herself, building mood boards for each event and shaping the aesthetic language from the ground up. “Years of working in marketing taught me how to think in experiences,” she says. “This felt like the most personal version of that.” Execution came together with planners Karmaa by Aman Paul, who translated her vision across venues and formats.
The invitations became the first expression of that thinking. Designed with The Nureh Project, each card subtly reflected the mood of its event rather than prescribing a dress code. One detail mattered deeply to Jailkhani: his two dogs, a German Shepherd and a Husky, who couldn’t attend the celebrations. They were illustrated into the save-the-date, seated inside a shikara, ensuring they were present in spirit from the very beginning.
Honouring both cultures was central to the planning. Oberoi comes from a Punjabi Hindu household, while Jailkhani’s family follows Kashmiri Pandit traditions, with Punjabi roots on his mother’s side. One of the most significant gestures came months before the wedding when Oberoi underwent a conch piercing to wear the Kashmiri dejhoor. “It wasn’t something I wanted to do performatively,” she says. “Wearing the dejhoor felt like a physical way of honouring Vedant’s heritage and the family I was becoming part of.” On the wedding day, she wore the dejhoor tied with a red thread by her mother, to be later replaced with a gold chain once she entered Jailkhani’s home.
The bridal shower came first, held at her grandmother’s home. She wore a pearl-work cape gown by House of Masaba. “It was flowy, feminine and surprisingly comfortable, yet had the perfect amount of drama to mark the beginning of the festivities.” Custom hair accessories by HairDrama Co. featured cascading pearl chains with a subtle “Bride” detail woven in. Her shoes were custom-made by Pace Shoes India, designed during a chance pop-up visit in New Delhi. The backyard was transformed with clear balloons filled with pearls, acrylic hangings engraved with personal dates and quotes and a rose-petal shower by her sisters and cousins, a family ritual that has since become tradition.
