Reflections of Our Wedding Day
Soni Bagri & Ram Sidhu August 1,2009 PHOTOGRAPHED BY PARDEEP SINGH PHOTOGRAPHY

How you met?

We met back in 2001 in our high school days through some friends, but kind of drifted apart. In the summer of 2005, I was performing at the Sukshinder Shinda concert with a bunch of girls –so I’m inside getting ready to perform and I look out the window and I see Ram waiting in line to get in! Hmm…so I am thinking….. should I go outside and say hi or should I just leave it? We chatted and ended up getting Ram and his friends in without waiting and I went to perform and we never saw each other for the rest of the night. We both were SO happy to have run into each other, and that was the beginning! So this relationship wouldn’t have been possible without me! Hah! I take full responsibility for our awesome relationship!

Engagement – when was it, how did it all happen?

It was March 20, 2008, a year and a half to the date we had been dating. It was one of the biggest hockey games of the year, between the Edmonton Oilers and the Vancouver Canucks. It was a Thursday evening, I was heading to San Francisco the next morning with my mom for a cousin’s wedding, so Ram thought why don’t we go out for dinner and watch the game. After the game, Ram wanted to take me to the Oilers arena and just “walk around” outside. We ended up the Legislature, a very beautiful night, so we’re walking towards one of the flames and as we’re walking there was a cold breeze and I got cold, so Ram decides to give me his hoodie. And as I am putting the hoodie on, he is standing there in front of me with his back turned towards me. Ram says to me, read the back of my jersey Soni, read the back! Ram had gotten a new jersey made with “Will you marry me” stitched on the back. After I read that, he got down on one knee and said all the words a woman wants to hear at that time. It was the perfect night, perfect proposal, perfect ring and the perfect man.

Tell us about your wedding day?

Our wedding was held on August 1, 2009 at Nanaksar Gurdwara in Edmonton. The weather was perfect in the morning – not to hot and not to cool. As the day progressed the weather was so unbelievably hot that it was so unbearable to stand outside in the heat. On the way to the Doli, the limo stopped off at a park near my house and Ram and I jumped into a carriage with two black horses that I had rented. It was the most magical moment ever, I felt like a princess. As we approached my house both of us felt like movie stars – everyone was clapping and taking pictures, even random people brought out their cameras and were sitting out on their lawns. It was the most perfect day – I couldn’t have asked for a better wedding.

Both Ram and I are very much family orientated and our special day wouldn’t have been special, without our extended families.

Bride and Groom - outfits, colors, flowers, special details?

Ram and I both travelled to India in October 2008 with both our parents to do our wedding shopping. I wanted to wear a bright red lengha with a little bit of turquoise blue and white stones with gold embroidery. Ram wore a gold colored achkhan with white and red stones and a red phug. My flower bouquet was red roses, white calalillies, and peacock feathers. My bridesmaids wore turquoise blue suits with silver and red embroidery. Their flower bouquets consisted of red roses, peacock feathers and blue orchids.

Tell us about your reception?

Our reception took place on Sunday, August 2 at Palace Banquet Hall in Edmonton. As for the reception outfit – my husband being a Lakers fan – really wanted me to wear a lengha with the Lakers colors. Yellow and Purple! When he first mentioned that in the summer before we went to India, I am not going to lie..I was like are you kidding me, but I got used to the combination and said why not.

I wanted a bench/swing for the reception, but the problem was that there was nothing like that here in Edmonton. I know it was in Vancouver since my cousin had it for her reception the year before. So I got my decorator to get a hold of a decorator in Vancouver to have it shipped to Edmonton. My decorator, being the sweetest girl ever rented a truck, had her brother drive down to Vancouver, and took down the swing and drove it to Edmonton in time for our reception. For centerpieces, half of the tables with tall vases of yellow roses, purple orchids and crystals hanging from the vases and the other half of the tables had shorter arrangements of the same type of flowers.