With the Ganga flowing below and the Himalayas above, Ananya and Karan chose Rishikesh for an intimate 60-guest wedding that felt like a meditation retreat and a celebration all at once.
Ananya is a yoga teacher. Karan is a civil engineer who once described himself as "the least spiritual person in any room." After their Rishikesh wedding, he revised that description. "I don't know what happened on that riverbank," he says, "but something shifted." The Pull of Rishikesh A destination wedding in Rishikesh attracts couples who want their ceremony to feel like more than a party. The town's position on the Ganga, framed by the forested foothills of the Himalayas, creates a setting that is naturally reverent. Sound carries differently here — quieter, cleaner. Ananya had visited on a yoga retreat two years before meeting Karan and had stored the memory like a promise to herself. They chose a riverside resort in the Tapovan area, known for its views across the river to the Ram Jhula bridge. The property held their 60 guests comfortably in a combination of cottage rooms and tented accommodation on the lawn — a setup that gave the whole event the feel of an extended family camp. The Ceremony The wedding ceremony was held at the water's edge at 7 AM — sunrise, mist on the river, the first light catching the snow on the peaks beyond. The pandit, a local scholar recommended by the resort, conducted a two-hour ceremony entirely in Sanskrit with simultaneous Hindi translation for the families. Ananya had prepared a short reading of her own, in English, which she delivered to Karan with the river behind her. Several guests described it as the most moving moment they had witnessed at any wedding. Their photographer worked in complete silence during the ceremony — no directions, no repositioning — and captured everything from a respectful distance. The resulting images have a stillness that suits the occasion exactly. The Celebration The Sangeet the previous evening was joyful and entirely informal: a bonfire on the lawn, a Bluetooth speaker, and a playlist that ran from Kishore Kumar to Diljit Dosanjh. Their caterer served a Garhwali thali dinner — local mountain c