Indian Summer



WRITER CREDIT: 
PHOTOGRAPHER CREDIT: 
Indian Summer | Rebecca Olson & Sanjay Gupta; May 15, 2004, The Shell House at Ashley Hall

“Ever since I first visited Charleston, I thought it would be a perfect place for a wedding,” says attorney Rebecca Olson. And though she didn’t know it then, she’d eventually get the opportunity to prove her theory. When neurosurgeon and CNN senior medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta proposed to Rebecca in a poem he’d written—“I keep it framed now, and read it every day,” she laughs—choosing the location was a piece of cake (a five-tiered, chocolate and vanilla buttercream cake, that is.) “We’re both from Michigan, so we knew a destination wedding would mean a lot of traveling for our families,” says Rebecca. “But we agreed that we wanted to make the wedding really special for them—a sort of mini-vacation.” With the help of Tara Guérard of Soirée, the Atlanta-based couple decided on a Hindu ceremony that honored Sanjay’s heritage, while still allowing for the inclusion of a few Western customs. Says Rebecca: “We got exactly what we wanted—a traditional Indian wedding that managed to tie in the beauty and flair of Charleston.”