Wedding Diaries

This traditional Parsi wedding in Mumbai carried ritual and revelry to a historic racecourse

For the Zoroastrian wedding ceremony, Sanaya Irani wore a custom Ashdeen ivory gara sari while Varaz Printer opted for a Kaizad Wadia ivory dagli

By Thea Mulchandani

While catching up with friends at Bombay Gymkhana, gemologist Varaz Printer heard the name Sanaya Irani come up in conversation. Curious, he looked up the Mumbai-based creative producer on Instagram. “We exchanged a few messages,” Irani recalls, “and before we knew it, we were on our first date.” What surprised them both was how instantly familiar it felt. “It honestly felt like we’d known each other our whole lives,” she says. From there, everything else fell into place.

Printer proposed on a road trip across the island of Sardinia, Italy. He had planned a boat day exploring the Gulf of Orosei. “My first shock was realising we had our own boat,” Irani laughs. “No skipper and no captain, it was just us.” When the current got too strong for the couple to swim to nearby beaches, they stayed on board, soaking it all in. That’s when Printer reached into his bag, dropped to one knee, and asked her to marry him. “It was surreal,” she says. “Completely overwhelming in the best way.”

When it came to the wedding, there was never any real debate about the location. “For both of us, a wedding in Mumbai was the only option,” Irani explains. Social to her core, she wanted everyone there, her friends, family and elders. “I didn’t want distance or guest limits to decide who could celebrate with us.” Printer agreed, “For our families and us, it’s always been the more, the merrier.”

The celebrations began with an engagement party at The Bombay Club, where a Zoroastrian ceremony was led by Irani’s mother and Printer’s aunt. Speeches followed, then music—Indian rock band KAPOW set the tone before DJ Choksi took over. “We danced till 3 am,” Irani says, “and ended the night with kheema pavs and baida rotis.” The mood was classic and fun: black-and-white décor, disco balls and a green canopy overhead. For the evening, Irani wore a Swarovski-embellished Berta Bridal mermaid gown, while Printer opted for beige trousers, a white shirt and a navy jacket by Roy Bespoke.

Their legal marriage signing was a very intimate affair. At home, with their golden retriever Joon in attendance, the couple signed papers, ate patiyo, cut a cake and celebrated with their closest family. The night before the wedding in Mumbai brought things full circle with a welcome dinner at Bombay Gymkhana. “From the day he first heard my name here to hosting everyone the night before the wedding, it felt poetic,” Irani reflects. The decor was kept simple, letting the gymkhana's 150-year-old architecture shine.

For the Zoroastrian wedding, the Members’ Pavilion at the Royal Western India Turf Club had everything they were looking for. “It’s the heritage, the scale, the rain trees, the old-world charm,” Irani says. “You feel transported, but you’re still right in the middle of the city.” Irani wore a custom Ashdeen ivory gara sari and veil, hand-embroidered with French knots that took over 3,500 hours. “I wanted something delicate, traditional, but still modern,” she says. Printer complemented her in a custom Kaizad Wadia ivory dagli, finished with French knot embroidery on the collar and cuffs to mirror her sari, along with a traditional pheta and a pomegranate brooch.

“That transition from ‘me’ to ‘we’ was incredibly powerful,” Irani says, referring to the ritual during their traditional ceremony where rice is thrown across a cloth separating the couple, before it’s lifted. “It really felt like the beginning of our life together.” After the ceremony, Belgian boogie band Midnight Avenue took the wedding party to the dance floor.

“Our vision for the day was ethereal and timeless,” shares Irani. “Varaz and I love things that are built to last, that have character and charm. We wanted our wedding to feel as lasting as our love for each other and our people.”