One for the road

Across four cities and three days, Trisha Vijay and Raj Thakker planned a wedding along Portugal's rugged coastline.

- ARZOO DINA

MOST PEOPLE PLAN a destination wedding with just one or two venues in mind. But not Trisha Vijay and Raj Thakker. A scouting trip to Portugal revealed the country’s historic palaces, lush gardens and dramatic cliffside vistas, leaving them enraptured. Unable to choose just one spot, they narrowed it down to four unique destinations in and around Lisbon and embarked on a road trip wedding.

The California natives, who both work with different streaming platforms in New York, met while volunteering to promote their college Bollywood dance team. Destiny took its course, and several years and countless dates later, Thakker proposed on a beach in Maui, Hawaii. Then came the wedding planning.

“We wanted to try and create a diverse set of experiences that would cover Portugal’s colourful architecture and dramatic ic terrain,” the couple shares. “We challenged ourselves to take the traditional tourist sights and turn them into something special, like private walking tours through Lisbon’s old town,” Vijay reveals.

The bride’s only condition: the planners was to ensure the venues were no more than half an hour away by road from Lisbon to avoid logistical nightmare. So the itinerary went from the resort town of Cascais, where they held their Beverly Hills Hotel-inspired welcome party, to Estoril, a chic town fondly dubbed the Portuguese Riviera, for their sangeet at the historic 17th-century Forte da Cruz. The celebrations continued in Loures with the wedding at a palatial pink heritage structure, and culminated with the reception at the 18th-century Queluz National Palace in Sintra, also nicknamed the Portuguese Versailles.