A beautiful wedding is no longer enough, at least not for Aashna Saran.
When she started Aash Studio in 2017, Saran admits she was far more concerned with how a space looked. Nearly a decade later, the question she asks is different: how does it make you feel? That shift has taken her work beyond stages, flowers and familiar wedding décor codes into something far more immersive, where lighting, sound, art, craft, architecture and even the way a guest moves through a venue become part of the story.
It also reflects how the expectations around big Indian weddings have changed. Couples and families who have travelled widely and experienced the best of hospitality, fashion, food and design are no longer satisfied with something simply because it looks expensive. They want a celebration that could only belong to them. For Saran, that has meant looking beyond scale and finding luxury in thought, access, craft and detail.
You can see that approach across Aash Studio’s work. For a sangeet at Mehrangarh Fort, Gond-inspired artwork came alive through projection mapping against centuries-old architecture.
For another project, Jeet Adani and Diva Shah’s Mastani mehendi, crochet, cane and cross-stitch were taken beyond decorative details to shape the identity of the space itself. At Umaid Bhawan, the grandeur of a palace became the backdrop for a red-and-white wedding designed to feel intimate, almost like home.
For Manifest Approved, Aashna Saran talks about why wedding décor is becoming less formulaic, how Indian craft can be made monumental without losing its character, what technology can add to a celebration, and why the weddings people remember are ultimately the ones that make them feel something.
Manifest (M): You founded Aash Studio in 2017. How has your approach to wedding design evolved since then?
Aashna Saran (AS): When I started Aash Studio in 2017, I was much more focused on how something looked. Over the years, my approach has become much more about how a space makes you feel.
Today, we think about weddings almost as immersive environments. It isn’t just the stage or the flowers anymore. It’s the journey into a space, the lighting, sound, art, materials, details on a table and even what a guest discovers as they move through it.
I’ve also become much more confident about editing. Earlier, I wanted to put every idea into a space. Now, I’m interested in creating one strong world and allowing the details to reveal themselves slowly.
M: What are HNI couples and families looking for in wedding design today that they weren’t a few years ago?
AS: There has been a shift from wanting something that simply looks luxurious to wanting something that feels original and personal.
Our clients are incredibly exposed today. They travel and experience amazing hotels, restaurants, fashion, art and design across the world, while constantly consuming imagery online. So just creating something “beautiful” isn’t enough anymore.
They want an experience their guests haven’t seen before and a design with a story behind it, something made specifically for them rather than a format that could be replicated at another wedding. Luxury today, for me, is about thought, access, craft and detail rather than just scale.
M: What are the biggest wedding design trends you’re seeing right now, and what feels dated?
AS: Weddings are becoming much more experiential and less formulaic. Clients are more open to art installations, unusual materials, immersive lighting, projection, handmade details and spaces that don’t necessarily look like traditional wedding décor.
Craft is also having an exciting moment. There is renewed interest in Indian textiles, embroidery, weaving, hand-painting and regional art forms, but interpreted in a contemporary way.
People are also becoming less interested in décor that exists purely for a photograph. The obvious “Instagram moment” or heavily themed wedding is giving way to spaces that feel more layered and natural.
I don’t think maximalism or minimalism is necessarily in or out. Both can be beautiful. What feels dated is anything generic or done simply because it is trending.
M: How do you bring a couple’s story into the design without making the wedding feel too literal or theme-led?
AS: I rarely want to take a story and translate it literally. Instead, we pull out little things: a memory, place, colour, object, flower, piece of art, something from their family or even just a feeling they want the celebration to have.
We then abstract those references through colour, material, form, art and details. You may not walk into the wedding and immediately understand every reference, but the couple will recognise pieces of themselves throughout it. I love that sense of discovery.
M: Technology is becoming a bigger part of wedding design. How are you using it without allowing it to overpower the space?
AS: What excites me about technology is when you almost forget that it is technology.
We’ve been experimenting with projection mapping, moving imagery, light and large-scale installations, but I never want technology to exist simply because it looks impressive. It needs to become part of the design language.
For a sangeet at Mehrangarh Fort, we worked with Gond-inspired artwork and projection mapping, allowing the artwork to come alive against the architecture of the fort. It became a meeting point between an ancient Indian art form, historic architecture and contemporary technology.
That contrast excites me: using technology to bring craft, art or storytelling to life rather than replacing them.
M: How does your approach change for a destination wedding? How much does the location influence the design?
AS: A lot. If you are travelling somewhere extraordinary to get married, I feel the location should have a voice in the wedding.
We start by looking at the architecture, landscape, history, colours, local materials and crafts. Sometimes the strongest design decision is knowing what not to cover.
Whether we’re working at Umaid Bhawan in Jodhpur, a palace in Istanbul or somewhere by the water, I don’t want to create a world that could simply be picked up and moved somewhere else.
At the same time, everything doesn’t need to become overtly local. It’s about finding an interesting conversation between the couple, the destination and our own design language.
M: For a multi-day wedding, how do you give every function its own identity while keeping the celebration cohesive?
AS: I think of a multi-day wedding almost like different chapters of the same book.
Every function needs its own energy. A mehendi can be playful and tactile, a sangeet theatrical and immersive, a wedding emotional and timeless, and an after-party completely unexpected.
We deliberately change palettes, materials, lighting and spatial language between functions so guests feel transported each time. The cohesion doesn’t have to come from repeating the same colours or motifs. It comes from the sensibility behind everything, the level of detail and the storytelling.
M: Indian craft features strongly in your work. Which crafts and techniques are exciting you right now?
AS: This is one of the parts of design I’m most excited about. India has such an extraordinary vocabulary of craft, and I love taking something that has existed for generations and changing its scale, material or context.
We’ve explored everything from Gond art and Paithani references to Jamdani, cane, crochet, cross-stitch, embroidery and hand-painted surfaces.
For Jeet Adani and Diva Shah’s mehendi, Mastani, we worked extensively with crochet, cane and cross-stitch, with a huge emphasis on women-led craft. These weren’t simply decorative references. Craft became part of the architecture and identity of the space.
I’m particularly interested in what happens when you take something traditionally small and make it monumental. A stitch can become an installation. A textile pattern can become architecture. That transformation is really exciting.
M: Which three Aash Studio projects best represent where the studio is today?
AS: It’s always difficult because different projects represent different sides of the studio, but three feel particularly relevant.
Mastani, Jeet Adani and Diva Shah’s mehendi, represents our love for Indian craft and detail. Crochet, cane and cross-stitch became the vocabulary of the entire environment. There was also a conscious effort to create pieces that could have a life beyond the wedding rather than everything being made for a single day.
The Mehrangarh Fort sangeet represents the more immersive and experimental side of Aash Studio. We worked with Gond-inspired art, projection mapping and light within the fort. I loved the dialogue between something ancient and something technological, without either overpowering the other.
Quinn and Tanmay’s wedding at Umaid Bhawan allowed us to explore several very different design languages within one celebration. One of my favourite spaces was their red-and-white wedding, where we wanted the ballroom to feel intimate and emotional, almost like creating a sense of home within the grandeur of a palace. It represents the balance we’re constantly looking for between scale and intimacy.
M: What’s next for Aash Studio? What do you want to explore further in wedding and experiential design?
AS: Aash Studio is moving into a phase where I want to blur the lines between weddings, interiors, art, fashion and experiential design even further.
We’re interested in creating installations and objects rather than only “décor”, things that can live beyond the event itself. I’ve also been building Botanics, which explores floral installations and floral art in a slightly different format.
For Aash Studio, I want us to continue experimenting with technology, projection and large-scale art while going deeper into Indian craft and handmade processes.
That contradiction is where I see our work going: something incredibly handmade sitting beside something technologically advanced, something centuries old interpreted in a completely new way.
Ultimately, I want us to keep creating worlds that people remember not only because of what they looked like, but because of how they felt.