Pamela Krivec and Deepak Chhugani met at a mutual friend’s birthday party in the summer of 2016. It was a chance encounter—and the next day, Pamela was leaving town. “It was the last day of my internship and my last night in New York before traveling back to Boston College for my senior year,” she remembers. “Deepak had just quit banking and was starting his own company.” They got to know each other and, despite the short distance, “the timing could not have been better.” (In fact, they would go on to date much longer distance during the year-and-a-half that Pamela lived in London).
Four years later, though, they were back in New York City together, living in a tiny West Village apartment with a stellar rooftop. It was there that Deepak proposed. “He rushed me upstairs saying that our new neighbor was playing the piano,” Pamela remembers. “I followed him to the rooftop, where a jazz band and singer were playing ‘La Vie en Rose’ by Edith Piaf, one of my favorite songs. Only then did I realize what was happening.” She said yes, and the two slow-danced as the sun set over the skyline. “It was a very NYC proposal.”
The couple knew they wanted a destination wedding as their guests would be traveling from all around the world. “I was born and raised in Slovenia, where I lived until coming to the U.S. for college; Deepak grew up in Ecuador with Indian parents and also came to the U.S. for college,” Pamela explains. “Our wedding was the perfect opportunity to introduce all of our cultures and loved ones. We decided to do a three-day wedding because most of our guests were coming from far away, and we wanted them to really enjoy themselves.”
The Andaz Mayakoba resort near Cancun was easily accessible for almost everyone and provided enough unique spaces to house all of the couple’s events: A beach party on Thursday—complete with a Mexican buffet, DJ, live saxophonist, and dancing past midnight—a traditional Hindu wedding on Friday, and a spiritual ceremony and Western reception on Saturday.
For all of those events, there was a lot of fashion to consider. Pamela had never been to an Indian wedding before her own, “so choosing my Indian dress was a new experience for me,” she says. “My mother-in-law expressed a desire that I wear a traditional wedding color, and I happily went for red.” She selected a stunning lehenga from Anita Dongre to play off Deepak’s white kurta by the same designer.
“The jewelry is also very important,” Pamela states. “We picked out the main necklace, earrings, bracelets, and tikka together with Deepak’s family, and I wore additional family necklaces and bracelets for the ceremony.” She opted for stronger makeup to complement her vibrant attire, and the team from Salty Beauty delivered.
Pamela went shopping once again for her Western wedding look.” I went wedding dress shopping without having a set idea of what I wanted from the start,” she shares. “We went to a couple of salons, and at the second try-on at Spina Bride, I decided on the Samuelle Couture Isabella gown. I fell in love with the delicate lace and the elegance of the dress.” She worked directly with the designer through various fittings to have the dress constructed perfectly for her body. “That was a very special experience. Sam is great, and I still keep in touch with her.” For dancing, Pamela changed once more into a silk slip dress from Kiki de Montparnasse, paired with a pearl headband.
“Both ceremonies were very special,” Pamela remembers. On February 4, 2022, their Hindu ceremony started with a baraat. “There were drummers and dancing, and it set the mood for the evening,” Pamela says. “Our almost two-hour wedding ceremony included the key Indian rites and, to me, it almost felt like a sort of meditation.” Afterward, there was a buffet of Indian food, toasts from the groom’s family and a surprise dance-off. Then, more dancing until late that night.
The next day, February 5, the couple said “I do” again, this time in a chapel. “We asked one of our closest friends to lead our spiritual ceremony,” Pamela says. “We prepared a program that included short speeches from friends, readings from The Bible, poetry from both Latin American and English authors and songwriters, the traditional ring exchange, Mexican lazo ritual, and vows. It was marvelous.”
Guests had cocktails and canapes outside, then headed into the reception venue for a seated dinner. The dancing started up again quickly: The newlyweds kicked things off with a first dance to Ed Sheeran and Andrea Bocelli’s “Perfect Symphony,” then invited guests onto the floor as a live violinist played Coldplay’s “A Sky Full of Stars,” Pamela says. “Then we danced until early morning.”
