Jasmin dargani & arshad wala

“I honestly don’t believe in love at first sight,” says Arshad Wala, “but that’s exactly what happened when I saw Jasmin Dargani.”

Some would say the stars aligned, as he reluctantly dragged himself to a tech conference happy hour despite the fact that he doesn’t drink. He spotted her at the door checking in attendees. “Even though there was a line of people standing in the rain to get in, we talked for fifteen minutes,” he says.

Arshad got her number and asked Jasmin to dinner followed by forty straight days of seeing each other. On the forty-first day, Jasmin, a student at Loyola Marymount University, flew home to Manila, Philippines for winter break. Unhappy at being separated, and in a decision worthy of a romantic movie, he headed for the airport sans luggage, bought a ticket to Manila, and showed up at her door. “I’m sure her parents thought I was crazy,” says Arshad.

After her graduation, the couple’s plan to mix the best of Eastern and Western marriage traditions began with their parents meeting and exchanging gifts of gold for the Hindu blessing of the union. Then, Arshad surprised Jasmin with a Western-style proposal. Saying that work would keep him from joining her on a trip to Manila, he arrived at her parents’ home the next morning and knocked on the door with a six-carat diamond ring from Tiffany & Co.

The wedding, held in Los Angeles, consisted of six celebrations starting Friday afternoon with a “bows and bowties” brunch welcoming the overseas guests, followed that night by a James Bond-themed soirée. A traditional Mehndi to cover the bride’s hands and feet in intricate designs with henna was held Saturday afternoon. Jasmin gifted one hundred of her female friends and family with spiritual eighteen-carat gold and black onyx jasmine flower bracelets that she designed and made by hand through her Bisou Jewelry company.

Saturday evening was the Sangeet, a night of dancing to prepare the bride and groom for their ceremony the next day. The Montage Beverly Hills ballroom was transformed into an Arabian Nights vision of the streets of India with colorful canopies and ornate lanterns.

The group headed to the Beverly Hills Hotel for the Pheras, or taking of the vows, and the reception on Sunday. Arshad arrived in his Aston Martin and transferred to horse and carriage for the Baraat, or groom’s processional, stopping traffic on Sunset Boulevard. Wearing traditional Indian garb for the ceremony, the couple circled a burning flame and recited their seven vows. “After that we were officially married and had our first kiss,” says Jasmin.

For the Western style “old-Hollywood glamour” party, Jasmin changed into a Marchesa wedding gown and floated through her first official dance with her husband and her father/daughter dance. “Arshad doesn’t ever sing, not even karaoke,” says Jasmin, “but that night he sang to me through our entire dance.”

A six-week European honeymoon started in Paris and wandered through Cannes, Nice, Monte Carlo, Florence, Pisa, and the Riviera, ending in Rome. The couple returned to what was supposed to be a completed renovation of Arshad’s condo to find it empty except for a bed. “I was so happy to be waking up next to Arshad for the rest of my life,” says Jasmin, “that nothing else mattered.”