An Indian Micro Wedding in the Santa Cruz Redwoods

Family, and a Break Between Two Ceremonies

After the Hindu ceremony came photos, then a pause, time for Neha and Chris to change before the evening. Sand Rock Farm gives you room for both: the ten-acre estate was built in the 1880s as a ranch and winery, and its redwood grove, with a trickling fountain and light coming down through the branches, is where couples come to marry here.

With only ten people and the whole property to themselves, family portraits stayed unhurried, the grove, the gardens, and the two of them between the two halves of their day. The East Coast relatives who had made the flight could take their time with the couple, and the children ran the grounds in between. It was the kind of break a two-ceremony day needs: long enough to breathe, short enough that the evening felt like a continuation of the same day.

Western Vows Around the Dinner Table. Intimate Indian Wedding in California

In the evening everyone gathered around a single dinner table for the Western half of the day. Chris's brother organized the vows, and Neha and Chris said them there at the table, in front of the ten people who had traveled to be with them.

Dinner was a sit-down meal, and the cake, included with the estate, was cut among family. The night stayed loose after that: casual dancing, the East Coast relatives and the children still up, the redwoods dark around the property.