A Winter Wedding in Portland, Oregon With Disco Dance Party Vibes

Keats + Anshul started dating in high school and have been together ever since. Ten years into their love story, it was time for a celebration!! 

Keats + Anshul’s wedding had two main sources of inspiration. One was disco! These two adore the escape of dancing the night away under a glittering disco ball. The other was their new home city of Portland, Oregon. Portland — an iconically funky town surrounded by the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest — is the first place these two ever lived together after dating since they were teenagers and weathering some years of long distance. So they wanted to reflect the PNW homebase where they started their lives together.

To bring this winter wedding vision to life Keats + Anshul worked with planners from Bridal Bliss and built a muted, earthy design palette built around the colors of Portland in December. From there they added tons of disco flair and were excited to weave in elements of Indian culture to honor Anshul’s roots. 

Their Portland-inspired disco party full of friends and family took over The Evergreen in downtown PDX, and photographers from Indwell Weddings were there every step of the way snapping amazing photos of this totally joy-filled day!

Loving these blush invitations!! Keats + Anshul included this color in the palette to reflect Portland’s late-morning winter sunrises.

Indwell Floral created the day’s floral moments from a mix of fresh and dried flowers to capture the wedding’s wintery vibe. Those dried ferns give Keats’s bouquet so much texture!

Obsessed with the pearl detail eye makeup look and disco-era half-up hairstyle that Keats was rocking!! Both were the work of stylist and makeup artist Marina Haynes.

Keats worked at the bridal salon Ania Bridal for a stretch at the beginning of the pandemic, so she was no stranger to the dress-finding process. She’d even tried a few gowns on at work, long before her own dress hunt began.

This pick came as a surprise to her though! “When I tried on my wedding dress, I was truly stumped because I really did not expect it,” Keats says. “The style, the fabric, the sleeves—but I knew I was in love with it.” She couldn’t resist the modern twist on a retro silhouette. A totally perfect mix of playful and elegant!

Keats’s gown reminds us so much of the Watters Garance Off-Shoulder Satin Sheath Wedding Gown from Anthropologie Weddings.

So satisfying when a mismatched bridal party color palette comes together and looks AMAZING. Take a peek at our lists of the best champagne bridesmaid dresses, best sage green bridesmaid dresses and best rose gold bridesmaid dresses if you’re digging this combo as much as we are

Anshul found this gorgeous floral sherwani at Pernia’s Pop-Up Shop on a wedding planning trip to India (these two had a second wedding there in April!!). “I wanted to pay homage to my Indian identity and culture in a way that felt authentic to me in more ways than one,” Anshul says. “I immediately fell in love with the intricate embroidery work and color usage. I have always had a soft spot for floral in my style and clothing choices (since high school when Keats and I first met) and the fact that I could find it in an Indian style made it feel authentically me.”

The Ceremony

Paperset Studio created the day’s minimalistic modern blush signage.

Take a look at our tips for how to get creative with your ceremony seating if you like the idea of something immersive like Keats + Anshul’s half-round setup.

Roses played a big part in the floral design since Portland is the City of Roses!

Our Favorite Memory From The Wedding
Bride: I remember the moment when my dad and I first started to walk down the stairs to Anshul and "Moon River" started playing. The song I chose to walk down the aisle was "Moon River" in the style of Frank Ocean. The inspiration for that song was because my mom and dad's "song" was "Moon River" but it felt like our own take by using a different version. As soon as the music plays, my dad is crying then I'm crying then I look at Anshul and he's crying -- so we're all crying. Then I just felt this string of connection between me and Anshul and it felt like just the two of us (cue Grover Washington Jr.), BUT I also just remember walking down the aisle and feeling SO SO much love from every person in that room and it made me realize just how grateful I am to have amazing love like this in my life (Anshul, family, friends, etc). 
Groom: For me it was the last dance. We decided to not do a first dance, but instead end the night with the last dance while our guests went outside for our exit. The reason it was so special to me is because I felt like I got to have a moment with you after THE MOMENT to revel in our happiness as just the two of us. 

Our Musical Choices
			
Processional: "Rum Hee" by Shugo Tokumaru + "You Send Me" by Aretha Franklin + "Moon River" by Frank Ocean
			
			
Recessional: "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
			
			
First Dance: "Don't Worry Baby" by The Brook & The Bluff (cover of the Beach Boys)
			
		

The Reception

LOVE that the ceremony backdrop arches were repurposed for the sweetheart table!!

Into the elegance of this all-black guest seating from Lily and Cane.

Arden Event Collective outfitted these chic, wintery reception tables with their amazing earth-tone dinnerware, tinted glassware, and textured linens.

Love an audio guestbook!!

Keats + Anshul were SO ready to spread the love to all of their guests: “The past few years have been so difficult, sad, painful and just so overwhelming that we just wanted people (and ourselves) to walk in and be filled with that same mindset of ‘We leave all of the real world at the front door, and now we enter this space filled with contagious happiness, fun and just a bubble of love.'”

Keats did a spectacular outfit change into the Ivory Puff Dress from Selkie, a pair of white go go boots (like these from Princess Polly!), and rhinestone tights. “I totally felt like I was going to our own personal disco,” she says.

This disco dance party was next-level. “Our DJ, Ben, at Higher Ground Entertainment was amazing and we really worked to curate a playlist that included Indian cinema classics like “It’s the time to Disco” with then disco/dance remixes and then classic 60-70s bops — it really felt like a disco club and it was BLISSFUL!”

Our Advice To Those Planning Now
Our biggest piece of advice is find a team that you connect with: personality, aesthetic, etc. Our vendors made this entire moment come together in a way we COULD NOT have imagined to be real. Our coordinator, Candida (at Bridal Bliss), and our stylist/photographer, Kiara (at Indwell Weddings), made every moment leading up to the wedding fun and as stress-free as possible but it felt like they were actual guests at our wedding. We all danced together, celebrated together, took photos together, and they were truly just a light throughout the process and at the final event -- we could not be more grateful. 
Another piece of advice is to remember that this wedding/moment is about you, your relationship, and celebrating your journey as a couple that continues on! It is so easy to get lost in the understandable stress: family, invitations, color schemes, budgets, RSVPs, etc. -- but at the end of the night you look around and just see an abundance of love (for each other, your friends, your family, everyone there to remember this moment with you) and it's all going to be okay. 

Keats wore a pair of classic white Nike Air Force 1’s for their sparkler-lined exit. And how great is Anshul’s green reception suit with that turtleneck?!

Check out how to rock a bridal sneaker look if you’re loving Keats’s mid-celebration move to a more casual shoe!

Congratulations, Keats + Anshul!! So happy for you and your perfectly Portland disco-inspired day!! All the best from GWS!