NORAH & RISHI

People often assume that Norah Oles and Rishi Kundi met through work—she’s a psychiatry resident at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., and he’s a vascular and trauma surgeon at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center downtown—but, in fact, they both swiped right on Tinder.

When they met, Norah was a medical student at the University of Illinois, but in Baltimore working as a research fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Transgender and Gender-Expansive Health. Their first date was a walk around Hampden, their second date lasted 36 hours. Then lockdown hit and they had a couple of socially-distanced dates—but they weren’t nearly as satisfying. Finally, Rishi said, “Hey, this quarantine thing probably isn’t going to last that long. Why don’t you come and stay with me?” Norah has been there ever since.

After about two years of living together, it was obvious that they both wanted this to be a “permanent arrangement,” says Rishi.

Both eminently practical, they knew that the engagement should happen before December, when Norah started interviewing for residency. After deciding that, they realized that once she started her residency, she wouldn’t have any time to plan or even attend her own wedding. So, the wedding deadline was July.

Within two weeks of agreeing that they wanted to be married, they secured a venue and a date—but there was one problem: There still hadn’t been a proposal. Rishi hatched a plan. While at the Maryland Renaissance Festival, with Norah in costume, Rishi asked to take her picture. After snapping a couple of photos, he said, “Let me fix your . . .” walked over, and with a dexterity appropriate to his profession, slipped a ring on without Norah feeling anything. As he started taking pictures again, Norah realized that something had happened and saw the ring—at just the right time to capture her reaction.

They knew their wedding was going to combine their Hindu and Jewish upbringings—one of Rishi’s favorite memories is seeing Norah wearing a sari and being lifted in a chair for the hora—but what was “most important to both of us was that the ceremony be concise, effective, and personalized.”

Norah had never been the kind of person who dreamt about a wedding, but it was easy to be inspired. “We started with our ceremony outfits and Gramercy Mansion and its gardens and worked with creating an Indian-Jewish fusion wedding that spoke to my love of whimsy and color and Rishi’s love of   . . . various shades of grey,” she says, laughing.

But it all came together. The two were married on a gorgeous spring evening surrounded by all their favorite people.

And the mad dash to the chuppah/mandap was worth it. “Because the rush to book venues after quarantine was eased, we were motivated to progress from idly talking about marriage to engagement to wedding,” says Rishi. “It was an exhortation to not waste any time in securing happiness.”

BEAUTY Aimee Nicole MUA (makeup); PriscillaM Beauty (hair) CAKE Charm City Cakes CATERER The Classic Catering People FLORAL DESIGN Kate Campbell Floral GROOM Custom kurta from Falguni Shane Peacock via Studio East6 HENNA Tangled Kat Henna HONEYMOON Iceland  INVITATIONS Minted LOCATION Gramercy Mansion MUSIC Josh Langfus and Margo Heston, the bride’s friends (ceremony); The Dapper DJs (cocktail hour and reception) OFFICIANTS Rabbi Deborah Reichmann and Shreena Gandhi PHOTOGRAPHY Rachel Cooper RENTALS Select Event Group and 876 Events and Rentals TRANSPORTATION Bayside Limo WEDDING OUTFITS Custom Lehenga by Falguni Peacock via Studio East6 (ceremony); Sari by Anita Dongre via Studio East6 (reception); Jimmy Choo shoes via Poshmark WEDDING PLANNER CG & Co Events