A long-distance love story came full circle in a wedding in Dar es Salaam with vows by the ocean

This love story begins at a community sports festival in Dar es Salaam. That’s where 16-year-old Vishal Vithlani, already armed with intel about a certain Dhwani Rajani, set out to engineer a meeting. The encounter was brief, but it was enough to set something in motion.

What followed were years of calls, catch-ups and countless airport goodbyes. From Tanzania to Chicago and eventually London, Vithlani, an entrepreneur, and Rajani, a freelancer, kept finding their way back to one another–proof that distance can deepen a bond rather than diminish it.

When it came to the proposal, subtlety was never going to be Vithlani’s style. “Yes, much to my ‘surprise,’ Vishal pulled out a magnificent experience to ask me to marry him,” Rajani laughs. He flew her to Oman’s Musandam mountains, checked them into Six Senses Zighy Bay–where paragliding is literally a check-in option–and insisted she shop for something special in Dubai. “He was unusually opinionated about my outfits. That should have been my first clue,” she recalls. The hints all led to a private dinner in the mountains, where Vithlani went down on one knee with a ring. The answer, of course, was yes.

Their pre-wedding shoot was no ordinary walk through the gardens. “We’ve always shared a love for nature and adventure, whether it’s hiking, swimming, snorkelling or even paragliding,” Rajani says. So when Himanshu of Epic Stories suggested a hidden turtle cave in Zanzibar, she agreed immediately. “I’m a complete water baby and turtles have always held a special place in my heart.” As they floated in the water, turtles drifted past, while the couple created a memory they still return to. “Shooting amongst turtles was unlike anything we had ever imagined, equal parts exciting and magical,” Rajani recalls.

For the wedding itself, the compass pointed home. “Tanzania has always been home and home is where the heart is,” Rajani says. A marathon of vendor calls, mood boards and late-night planning sessions followed. “We wanted all our nearest and dearest to feel every moment, and that’s exactly what we managed to pull off.”

The festivities opened with a Sagai ceremony and a Mediterranean beach cocktail, where a live saxophonist played against the ocean. The next day brought pujas, followed by a marigold-and-purple haldi that resembled a bohemian daydream, complete with a spritzer bar and street food counters. At the Sangeet, the walkway was lined with easels carrying handwritten notes of advice, little reminders the couple had lived by over the years, leading into a night of fairy lights, dance numbers on a white chequered floor and cocktails that leaned into Dar’s love for whiskey and gin.