Rima + Richard’s meant-to-be college love story began on the campus of MIT.
“We first actually met when Richard lined up early in a big hall called Lobby 13 to get his class ring where Rima, as a member of the ring’s design committee, sized his finger,” remember the bride + groom of the moment they met senior year. “Richard immediately knew he was interested in Rima and tried to awkwardly insert himself into a conversation Rima and her friend were having. Later that day, Rima sent Richard their first message via Facebook Messenger, saying the famous words, “So glad to hear we’re BFFs now” (but not before accidentally texting that to a different Richard)!”
Eight years later, their proposal brought the story full circle: “In August 2022, Richard brought Rima back to Lobby 13, where we first met, and set up an art gallery of different crafts highlighting different special memories of our relationship, all made by him, our family, and our friends!”
You can tell by this engagement story—this inventive + creative couple loves a good craft. So when it came time to plan their wedding they put that DIY, project-oriented energy to good use by absolutely filling the day with thoughtful elements they’d created themselves. “We really wanted the wedding to be a fun and meaningful project for both of us, and so we really took a “yes, and” mentality wherever craft inspiration struck,” Rima + Richard say. That’s how they ended up with the day’s brilliant florals, hand dyed bridesmaid sneakers, handmade ceramic guest favors, unique 3D-printed wedding rings, and so much more.
Together with Events Impossible Rima + Richard filled the lush, greenhouse-like atrium garden of the Westin Southfield with the rich + carefully coordinated colors that made their day so spectacular. “We love everything bright and vibrant and colorful,” Rima + Richard say, “so traditional wedding themes with a limited color palette would not have felt authentic to who we are, and all our guests would have been shocked!”
We can’t wait to take you through all the color-rich + creative details of Rima + Richard’s Detroit, Michigan wedding, so let’s get into Rosy & Shaun’s gorgeous photos!
“Richard painted all our stationery using drawings he made of flowers from Rima’s grandma’s garden in India,” say Richard + Rima.
“A massive project we took on that was incredibly worth it was making each other’s wedding rings!” the creative couple says. “Richard makes video games for a living, and using his skills with digital 3D art, he designed and sculpted both Rima’s engagement ring and wedding band and got them 3D printed in metal through Shapeways! The designs are floral, drawing heavy inspiration from henna art.”
“Rima, who is almost done with her doctorate in mechanical engineering, made Richard’s engagement ring by carving a wax mold by hand and made his wedding band using CAD software! She drew out a pattern based on a beloved sculpture on our college campus using symbols that were meaningful to us and then digitally projected them out onto a 3D ring model she created so that we could 3D print it in gold! We love these rings so, so much, and they mean so much more to us since we designed them from scratch for each other!”
“For the ceremony, I had a custom floral dress from Jordan de Ruiter,” says Rima. “I had been following her Etsy page for a long time and loved a gown she had made, and liked the idea of working directly with a designer on my outfit.”
The beautiful, botanical print of these floral block heels fit perfectly into the day’s full-bloom vibe.
“I went to a wedding dress store with some of my friends to get a sense of the silhouette, style, and structure I liked best so that I could convey that to Jordan,” says Rima of how she approached her wedding dress’s design. “I had such an amazing process working with her and iterating on designs, and the final gown was actually more affordable than buying a dress off the rack and felt so much more special. Avoiding alterations costs was a huge win as well since the dress was made perfectly to my measurements!”
Color blocked bridesmaid bouquets are one of the wedding trends we’re currently loving, so we are totally obsessed with these.
Who doesn’t love a pair of wedding sneakers! Rima + Richard hand-dyed each pair of Keds to create a color coordinated look.
“Our color palette had a festive but elegant balance of vibrant, warm, and cool colors with a pop of yellow,” the couple says. “Our own outfits were bold, lighter colors to stand out from our wedding party.”
“Inspired by how colorfully we painted our apartment, one idea we latched onto very early on was to have our big wedding party in different vivid colors. At the same time, we didn’t want it to look like it was just a rainbow,” say Rima + Richard. “All our vendors kept asking what our color scheme was and we kept having to say ‘all the colors!’”
The couple incorporated even more fab floral print energy with these wedding party ties from Elena and Chris.
Richard and other suit-wearing members of the wedding party rocked these super cool dried floral pocket boutonnieres by EveliUA.
An Unforgettable First Look
Our Favorite Memory From The Wedding From Richard: "My favorite memory was the first look! I took a hard stance on not wanting to see her dress till the first look, and I was immediately in tears seeing Rima so beautiful in the perfect dress for her on such a special day. Some other highlights for me were seeing the reveal of our live painter’s painting, getting my first glimpse at all of our decor coming together in the venue, hearing Rima’s vows, and watching this cute dance my extended family did with these ridiculous cowboy hats. I have many more favorites but I’ll leave it at these!"
From Rima: "There are way too many to count! I loved having the morning to get ready with all my best friends! We didn’t hire anyone for hair and makeup, so it was very much the vibe of getting ready for a big event with your friends, which is exactly what I wanted. Two of my friends helped with my eye makeup, each doing one eyelid, which was absolutely hilarious and brought me so much joy leading up to the actual ceremony. The first look was incredibly special and seeing Richard bawling all throughout the ceremony was so sweet and funny. There was a moment in our ceremony when Richard was absolutely losing it, and I put my hand on Richard’s cheek to reassure him- our photographers actually caught this on camera, and it’s so special to see that immortalized. I did a first look with my bridesmaids which was the moment when I also realized just how incredible our color scheme looked in person- that was the first moment of seeing an idea come together perfectly on the day of! Our friends and family had some amazing dance performances with surprises built in, including a bunch of my aunts joining in for one of the dances. Finally, at the end of the night, the DJ closed with Piano Man and everyone made a circle around us, and we did a little “last dance.” It was just the most incredible spontaneous moment and a perfect way to end the night surrounded by the love of everyone around us but also enjoying our little married bubble! It was a completely unplanned moment, and I wouldn’t have traded that for anything!"
A Ceremony Full of Significance
“The most rewarding project was our collaborative effort to make the arch,” say Rima + Richard of this glorious Pinterest-inspired DIY ceremony backdrop. “Given it was going to be the focal point of all our ceremony photos, we really wanted to go all out with it!”
“We found the wooden frame for the arch on Facebook marketplace super cheap and then went on a shopping spree at Michael’s, getting tons of silk flowers. It remarkably only took us a few days to fill every square inch of the frame with flowers. We could not have been happier with how it turned out! To maximize its use, we even moved the arch after the ceremony so people could use it as a photo booth backdrop!”
Completely obsessed with the way Rima + Richard extended the ceremony’s color world into this unique ceremony seating!
“From the beginning, we were both so stubborn in wanting to do things our own way and buck tradition. Thankfully we were both super aligned in our vision and expectations for the day, but it was so exciting to see it all click for everyone else the day of our wedding!” Rima says.
“It was really special to hear from guests and vendors that they had never seen a wedding like ours before, and I’m especially proud of how unique, memorable, and meaningful our ceremony was. It all truly felt like a celebration of our relationship and who we are, as well as all of those who love us and I’m still giddy thinking about the fact that we are actually married!”
“Rima’s family is from West Bengal in India, so we incorporated some Bengali traditions in our wedding, and adapted them to be more authentic to our relationship!” says the couple. “Neither of us are religious, so we had full leeway to pick and choose the traditions that felt right to us.”
“For example, during the ceremony, traditionally, the groom is welcomed by the mother of the bride and other women from the bride’s family, and we decided we wanted both of our families to participate in that tradition and welcome the newest member of their family! We had custom garlands that we exchanged as is traditionally done but skipped some other elements. Part of the ceremony (Saptapadi) involves taking seven steps to seven vows or blessings for the marriage. One of Rima’s bridesmaids, who is an amazing writer and poet, wrote us blessings that were more personal to our relationship and values, and we had different members of our wedding party read them aloud as we took each step!”
“It was beyond rewarding to see all of our efforts come together in such a spectacular and beautiful way, but the most special part of the day was still getting married to the love of my life!” says Richard. “The entire day was a monument to our relationship and all the effort we put into things we loved were what made the wedding such a perfect moment.”
Our Musical Choices Processional: "My One and Only Love" by Jim Hall + a live song by family and friends to "Akash Bhora" (Bengali song)
Recessional: "I Choose You" by Sara Bareilles
First Dance: We didn’t have an official first dance but we did do a waltz as part of our friends’ dance performance. We had a spontaneous “last dance” to Piano Man at the end of the night with all our friends and family in a circle around us as we danced together at the end of the reception!
“Rima figured out how to set up an amazing collective guest art project where guests use modeling paste to leave a mark on a giant canvas,” says the couple of the collaborative art piece that Textures By Ash helped to create. “We added our marks together as our “first craft” as part of the ceremony.”
A Vibrant Reception
In preparation for their day, Rima + Richard handmade 180 ceramic pots to use as escort cards and guest favors in this vibrant musesum display-like wedding receptionseating chart.
Not everybody can be as crafty as this remarkable couple, but if you love the look of this as much as we do, snag some ceramic vases in assorted colors to recreate it!
So fun to see what guests added to the communally created art piece! And what a wedding day memento! “Now we have this incredible piece of art on our wall that everyone contributed to!” the couple says.
“One of our favorite details was how stunning our table arrangements came out,” say Richard + Rima. “Richard spent a long time playing with color combinations and painting out different options for us to test out.”
“We dyed all the flowers with the help of a few bridesmaids, and Richard did the floral arrangements for the centerpieces and bouquets.”
Indian Wedding Attire
“For the reception, we both wanted to wear Indian outfits and we went shopping with my grandma when we were visiting our extended family in India,” says Rima. “Originally, I had envisioned wanting to wear something maroon and gold. The shopkeeper looked at me and said that I could try maroon, but he had a feeling I would like a specific purple ghagra (the name of this type of outfit) that he had! I tried on quite a few, and he was right. The purple one was the one for me!”
“We took the scarf to a store for men’s clothing and almost immediately found a sherwani for Richard that perfectly complemented the ghagra and brought in the floral theme of the whole wedding.”
Our Advice To Those Planning Now We found it incredibly rewarding to make our wedding meaningful and unique to us. We started our planning process by throwing out the traditional playbook and prioritizing what felt the most meaningful to us. We ditched all the traditions and rules that didn’t fit us: restrictions on color schemes, matching numbers of people on each side of a wedding party, wedding parties split by gender, etc. None of those things felt good to us or accurate to what we wanted and our relationships with our friends! Our final day felt much more real and authentic to who we are.
Since we come from different cultural backgrounds, we also spent a lot of time deciding what elements we liked and didn’t like from each culture's traditional wedding celebrations and also thought about new traditions we could introduce that would be meaningful to us, and the result was so worth it. We planned out a very cute, intimate ceremony heavily involving our family and friends, celebrating our story, and crafting! We were definitely a little nervous about how our eclectic ceremony would be received, but we were so pleasantly surprised at how much people loved it and how it helped others reframe what could happen in a wedding. People tell you things have to be done a certain way because of norms, but at the end of the day, those really don’t matter, do things in a way that’s authentic to you and makes you happy! Your wedding is about you and your relationship and we hope that examples like this help others feel empowered to do the celebration in the way that feels most representative of you and your marriage.
Rockstar Weddings provided the tunes for all of the reception’s magical musical moments.
“Of course, it is impossible to have an Indian celebration without some performances, so we had a mini sangeet during our receptions where our friends and family did some dances they had choreographed!” remember Rima + Richard. “We were really happy with all the decisions we made and how meaningful every detail of the day became for us.”
Congratulations, Rima + Richard! We are absolutely astounded by all the vibrant, handcrafted details of your day! So happy for you both!
photography: Rosy and Shaun Wedding Photography // venue name: Westin Southfield Garden Atrium, Detroit, Michigan, United States // planning: Events Impossible // florals: Oh You’re Lovely // wedding dress: Jordan de Ruiter // bridesmaid dresses: Azazie // groom attire: SuitShop // videography: Complete Video Solutions // cake: Sweet Heather Anne // linen rentals: Linen Hero // music: Rockstar Weddings // nails: Nails by Sharan // greenery: Ling’s Moment // live painter: EJ Your Wedding Painter // collaborative guest art: Textures by Ash // Indian desserts: Premium Cafe and Sweets // cannolis: Luca Pastry // pocket boutonnieres + floral comb: EveliUA // ties: Elena And Chris // rings: Shapeways // rings: Gigian Jewelers