This multicultural wedding in Kenya brought Swahili culture into an Indian celebration

In 2013, at the University of Minnesota, Pooja Shah and Akhil Bhargava were living parallel lives. Shah, raised in the coastal city of Mombasa, Kenya, was founding her sorority’s chapter at the university, while Bhargava, born in Australia and raised in Minnesota, was gearing up to become president of his fraternity. “Our first real conversations happened over steaming bowls of pho between classes,” Shah recalls. “Over the next four years, we became inseparable friends.”

In the summer of 2017, Shah had just graduated and moved to Chicago, while Bhargava happened to be interning there between graduate school semesters. “It was, in many ways, the summer of our lives,” she says. They discovered the city together—new restaurants, long walks along the lakeshore, late nights dancing and elaborate Game of Thrones watch parties.

Later that year, Bhargava returned to Chicago for Shah’s 22nd birthday. “That weekend, he decided to take the leap,” she says. What began with a kiss stretched across months apart while Shah travelled through Spain, Oman and Kenya. “Akhil texted me every day, never wavering in his conviction.” When she returned to Chicago, Bhargava flew in to meet her with nothing but a carry-on and a plan: a basketball game, followed by dinner and a poem asking if she would be his girlfriend.

In February 2024, Bhargava proposed during a visit to the Maasai Mara. “It’s a place that holds deep meaning for us,” says Shah. “It’s where my love of photography first ignited, and it remains one of my favourite places in the world.” From there, deciding where to marry felt instinctive. “We always knew we wanted to marry in Kenya. It never felt like a decision so much as a homecoming.”

For the couple, a wedding in Kenya meant far more than its safaris and pristine coastlines. “It’s Swahili hospitality; the generosity, the genuine care, the way every visitor is embraced like family,” Shah explains. Life on the coast moves at pole pole—slowly, gently. Planning a wedding in Kenya meant leaning into relationships over online portfolios and working within the limits of what the coast could offer. Prioritising local materials, minimising waste and coordinating across an eight-hour time difference became part of the process.

Shah worked on the event’s visuals and sensory details, while Bhargava focused on what he believes makes a celebration, like the food, the music and the energy. Above all, the couple wanted their guests to understand what it means to celebrate as Kenyan Indians. “To feel the pride, the warmth and the layered identity that shaped both of us long before we found each other,” shares Shah.