After meeting Vijay Mehra in the pool at The Crescent hotel in Dallas, Natalie Mehra’s mother invited him and his friend to join their dinner reservation at Nobu that night…and they actually showed up! “We ended up closing the restaurant down and talking until 6:00 a.m.,” Natalie remembers. “The very next day, Vijay told me that he was going to marry me one day.”
After two-and-a-half years together, he proposed in a snowy meadow while they were skiing in Deer Valley. The two began planning for a 2020 wedding in Anguilla, but because of the pandemic, they postponed and eventually cancelled their tropical I dos. Instead, the two had a civil ceremony at a courthouse in Austin, Texas.
By spring 2021, there was hope for planning a new celebration, and Natalie called her mother saying that she’d love to host her wedding in their backyard in Atlanta. “She was overjoyed, as this was all she had wanted the entire time,” the bride shares. Before Natalie could elaborate, her mother had already texted Tony Brewer & Company, who has planned events at their home since Natalie was born.
For their October 2021 wedding, Natalie was on a mission to use as much decor that they had purchased for the Anguilla event as possible. “We made the welcome party Anguilla-themed, so that guests could wear the outfits they had purchased for the beach,” the bride says. And Ashley D. Studio set the tone for the weekend with a beautiful invitation suite.
To help curate her wedding weekend wardrobe, Natalie hired bridal stylist Cynthia Cook Smith. In the spring of 2019, the bride sent Cynthia a photo of a new Monique Lhuillier dress with the message, “This is either going to be fabulous or tragic, but I think this is the dress.” The sample was flown from NYC to Los Angeles for Natalie to try on. “I probably watched too much Say Yes to the Dress in my younger years because I totally had my ‘bridal moment’ before I left the dressing room,” she says. The Bloom gown had a lot of fabric, so the two decided to crop the sleeves and make them removable and take out the lining.
To complement the bride, the mother of the bride wore an embroidered Carolina Herrera gown, while bridesmaids matched in light dresses from Galvan London, Ulla Johnson, Monique Lhuillier, Michael Lo Sordo, The Bar, and Bec + Bridge.
Somehow, Cynthia and Natalie were able to repurpose all the outfits from the four-day Anguilla wedding to fit the new fall fête. At the rehearsal dinner, Natalie wore a sweeping Giambattista Valli gown, which she added a black ribbon to.
For the baraat, which was a surprise addition for Vijay’s father, the couple headed to a mall outside of Atlanta and found traditional Indian outfits for everyone at Ladlee. “I know that it is tradition for the bride to wear red, however, I figured that not one piece of this event was ‘traditional,’” Natalie says. “I saw this pink and green one on the mannequin and knew it was the one!” Vijay’s mother snuck her husband’s ensemble in her suitcase.
Through the whole weekend, Natalie got ready with makeup artist Allison Elliott of Violet Grey and hairstylist Matilde Campos. They truly rolled with all the punches and postponements and were by the bride’s side the whole time. At one point at the baraat, Natalie was so uncomfortable in her 30-lb. outfit that she and the ladies ran into the bathroom; Natalie stripped down, and Allison and Matilde fanned her down with a shoebox. “They always seemed to calm me down and make me laugh,” the bride shares.
Natalie recalls that everything that could’ve gone wrong about the nuptials, did. It poured in the lead up to the ceremony, flooding the backyard, so everyone covered the grass with tarps. The day of the wedding, the team swept water into the lake with brooms. As chairs would sink in the mud, a walkway was created, and guests stood for the service.
On October 9, 2021, the bride walked down the aisle with her father and exchanged vows with Vijay. “I never told him [mine] at our courthouse ceremony, so I was very eager to share them with him,” she recalls. “After having the wedding, we can both honestly say that we feel MORE married than we did before. Being able to declare our love and share it with the people around us was an inexplicable feeling.”
For the reception, Tony and his team set up one single table for 180 people that curved along the driveway, converting the space into an enchanted garden party. A delicious meal by Soirée Catering was served, followed by the wedding cake, baked by Frosted Pumpkin. “During dinner, Vijay and I tried to walk around the whole table and speak with all of the guests and thank them for being there,” Natalie recalls. “We only made it half way…but I’m so glad we did that!”
Since the couple aren’t big dancers, Tony had an idea to create “Vijay Jazz Club,” a nod to their favorite spot in Paris—Chez Papa Jazz Club. The space had an eight-piece jazz band, wooden bar, lounge seating, and a dance floor. To better move around, Natalie changed into her two-piece Monique Lhuillier set and accessorized with a headpiece from Happy Isles.
Near the end of the night, the newlyweds made their grand exit into a family friend’s 1957 Chevy. “We got to the end of the driveway and told the driver to please make a U-turn and take us back to the party!” Natalie exclaims. The celebration continued until around 3:00 a.m.
The new mister and missus woke up in Natalie’s childhood pink canopy bed—they never made it to their suite at the St. Regis. Vijay immediately said, “That was the best day of my life.” “He tears up almost every time he talks about it, thinking about how special it was to have friends fly in from all over the world and be on one place,” Natalie explains. “Never again will that happen in life!”
