Aarav & Ishita are getting married, and would like you there

Come to the Orchard

Saturday the fourteenth of March, at a farm outside Nashik that belongs to Ishita’s aunt. Gates at four, dinner at eight, dancing until the generator gives up. Everything you need is on this page, including how to find the place, which is the hard part.

Aarav & Ishita

From the two of us

We wanted a wedding you could sit down at.

We have been to a lot of weddings in the last three years, and the ones we still talk about were never the expensive ones. They were the ones where somebody’s uncle did the cooking, where the chairs did not match, and where nobody minded that the speakers cut out before midnight.

So: an orchard outside Nashik, a farmhouse that belongs to Ishita’s aunt, forty-seven folding chairs borrowed from the school hall at Wadgaon, and one long table with sixty places and no plan for who sits where.

There is no dress code worth the name and no part of the day you can be late for. Come at four if you can. Stay until the generator gives up. That is the whole of it, and the rest of this page is directions.

Until the fourteenth

folding chairs, borrowed

Gates open at four in the afternoon. This clock is here because Ishita’s mother asked how long was left, and then asked again the next day.

How this happened, briefly

  1. October 2019
    A housewarming half of you were at

    A housewarming half of you were at

    Nikhil’s new flat, forty people, one very loud playlist, and the neighbours’ dog howling through all of it. Ishita said he was singing along. Aarav said he was in distress. That was the entire first conversation and it lasted two hours.

  2. That winter
    The bus we both kept getting on

    The bus we both kept getting on

    The same route home, twice a week. Entirely by accident for the first month, and entirely on purpose after that.

  3. 2021
    The flat above the bakery

    The flat above the bakery

    One room, no counter, and the smell of bread at half past four every morning. We cooked on two burners and fed whoever turned up. Several of you turned up.

  4. March 2023
    Biscuit moves in

    Biscuit moves in

    The dog from the housewarming, rehomed to us when Nikhil moved abroad. He is eleven now and still howls at that song. We have stopped arguing about why.

  5. Last October
    The question, asked badly, on a station platform

    The question, asked badly, on a station platform

    Aarav had four weeks of speech ready and used none of it. The 8:40 was announced halfway through. Ishita said yes over the tannoy, and then we both got on it, because it was the last one.

  6. This March
    All of you, in an orchard

    All of you, in an orchard

    Which is the part you come into.

He had a speech ready.

The 8:40 was announced halfway through.

She said yes over the tannoy,

and then we both got on the train.

Five years, mostly badly photographed

Several of these were taken by people who will be at the wedding. You know who you are.

Saturday, hour by hour

Saturday 14 March
Gates open at fourCome early if you want a good chair. There are 47 and they came from the school hall.
The ceremony
Half past five, under the biggest treeForty minutes. Nobody has to sit through a speech until dinner.
Photographs
Six o’clock, while the light is still goldTwenty minutes, then you are free for the rest of the evening.
Dinner
Eight, at one long tableSixty seats, no place cards. Sit next to somebody you have not met.
Dancing
From nine until the generator gives upHistorically, about midnight.
Last bus back
Half past twelve, from the gateSanjay waits ten minutes and not a minute more. He has done this before.

Getting there

The map will send you to a petrol pump. Keep going.

The pin drops at a petrol pump on the Nashik highway. That is right, and it is not the place; keep going. Turn left after the temple with the blue gate, then follow the track for four kilometres. It stops being a road about halfway along. Your car will be fine. Your suspension will have opinions.

If you would rather not drive it, do not. There is a bus from Nashik Road station at three o’clock, it is free, and Sanjay has driven this route for eleven years. Going back, he leaves the gate at half past twelve, waits ten minutes, and then he goes. We are telling you now so that nobody is surprised then.

Let us know by the first of March if you want a seat on it.

The place, and where to sleep

Where
Aamrai Farm, Wadgaon, outside Nashik
The drive
Two and a half hours from MumbaiThe last four kilometres are unpaved. Go slowly; the potholes are locally famous.
The bus
Three o’clock from Nashik Road stationFree, and easier than parking. Tell Meera by 1 March if you want a seat.
Parking
In the field by the gateIt is a field. If it has rained in the week, park along the track instead.
Staying over
Six rooms at the farmhouse, then the guest house in WadgaonThe six go to whoever is travelling furthest. Meera is keeping that list.
What to wear
Anything you would dance inGrass and dust. Heels will sink. This is not us being poetic.
Open the map

What you will be eating

While you arrive
Kokum sherbet and thin sev puriThe sherbet is Ishita’s mother’s. She will tell you it is nothing special. It is.
First
Bhakri, thecha, and the beans nobody expects to like
Mains
Mutton on the bone, and a paneer that is not an apologyCooked by Shalini and four people she has bullied into helping.
Save room for
Aarav’s grandmother’s shrikhandShe makes it once a year. This is the year she has chosen.
Later
Chai at eleven, for whoever is still standing
If you do not eat something
Tell Meera by 1 March and it will be thereNo apology needed, and no separate sad plate. We have planned for it.

The playlist is not finished

The song the dog sang along toSide A

One song each, sent to Meera before the first of March, and we will play all of them. The one from Nikhil’s housewarming is already in — the one Biscuit howled through. It is going on whether anybody dances to it or not.

Questions you were going to ask anyway

Tap one to turn it over. If yours is not here, ask Meera — she has answered more of these than we have.

Four small things

The things that would actually help

  1. 01No gifts. Genuinely none. Turn up with a box and we will make you carry it back to the bus.
  2. 02Tell Meera by the first of March whether you are coming, and whether you want a seat on the bus.
  3. 03Send Meera one song each. We will play all of them, including yours.
  4. 04If there is something you do not eat, say so by the first of March.
  5. 05Bring whatever photographs you still have from Nikhil’s housewarming in 2019. We have four between us.

One more thing, quietly

There is one chair we are leaving empty.

Ishita’s father taught her to drive on that same track — the four kilometres you will be complaining about on the way in. He would hand her the wheel at the temple and not say a word until the gate, and then he would say: again.

He died in 2022. His chair will be at the end of the long table with nobody in it, and we would much rather you did not tiptoe around that. Talk about him. The kokum sherbet you are handed at the gate is as much his recipe as her mother’s, so you will have had a drink with him before the ceremony starts. Ishita’s mother has better stories than either of us, and she has been waiting all year for somebody to ask.

Before the day itself

Here’s to the people coming

  • To Nikhil, who had the party, and to the neighbours who had the dog.
  • To Meera, who has answered forty questions this month that were meant for us.
  • To Shalini, and the four people she has bullied into cooking.
  • To whoever drives the van back to the school hall with forty-seven chairs in it.
  • And to everybody doing four kilometres of bad road to sit at a table with us.

What we will not get through on the day

A wedding is a strange thing to ask people for. You take a Saturday off somebody, and a shirt, and four kilometres of bad road, and in return you hand them a chair, a plate of food and a long walk to the car in the dark.

We thought about that a lot while writing the list. There is nobody on it out of obligation. Every name is somebody who has fed one of us, or waited out one of our bad months without making a thing of it, or turned up with a van at no notice, or sat in a corridor at a hospital, or simply kept ringing when we went quiet.

You are not decoration for the photographs. You are the reason there is anything worth photographing.

So come at four. Eat too much. Say something at the table about who we were before we were this. And if you see either of us standing on our own at some point in the evening, looking slightly stunned, come and stand next to us.

— Aarav & Ishita

Forty-seven chairs from a school hall,

one long table, sixty places,

a road that stops being a road,

and a dog who started all of it.

The fourteenth of March.

Four o’clock.

Come hungry.

We hope you can come.

Tell Meera yes or no by the first of March. A no is not a problem. A maybe is, because of the chairs.

Aarav & Ishita · 14 March · Aamrai Farm, Wadgaon

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