Art Meets Vows at the Wedding of Neil Ghose Balser and Doyel Joshi
In the wedding of a cross-cultural creative couple, design mirrored the spirit of poetry.
Beyond the sangeet, proposals, and bridal entries, there’s a more poetic way to think about performances on your special day. Take inspiration from multidisciplinary artists and founders of Howareyoufeeling studio, Neil Ghose Balser and Doyel Joshi, who brought their artistic vision to life through meaningful installations at their wedding. They designed a large-scale installation, titled Cascading Flowers, comprising 15,000 red flowers, handmade using fabric excess by Narangi Devi, a social business in Deoria, Uttar Pradesh.
“The idea is to reimagine, recontextualise, and reuse flowers in weddings as a source of deep evocation, joy, and aesthetics,” shares Balser. These same flowers would later find new life at the Hermès Mumbai and New Delhi stores for Diwali as part of the German-Marwari couple’s work.
When grounded in shared values, performances become more personal, layered, and lasting. Joshi, the other half of this duo, adds, “For us, the conversation was always about how we can have our marriage represent who we are and where we come from. We find great value in tradition, rituals, and ceremonies — especially in Indian culture. It is designed to elevate emotion and create connections and bonds across families, friends, and any boundaries. We live and work in the present, so contemporary, progressive, or future motifs are part of our thinking and being.”
Their wedding became an interplay of worlds — villagers from Germany who had never taken a flight, women in ghoonghats, Bengali intellectuals, and New York City gallerists all came together to celebrate. Part of that expression was the tube and ball installation: a bright red tube pulled through the heritage pillars of Castle Mandawa’s maze-like spaces, highlighting the beauty found in the ambiguity between the modern, contemporary, and traditional. A 10-foot red ball was also placed on the groom’s balcony — its striking symbolism warmly embraced by the guests. The ball installation would later reappear at Lovebirds Studio’s show, The Space in Between.