Niharika & Roberto’s Destination Wedding at Samode Palace, Jaipur

She once described him as someone who was way out of her league. A Spaniard she never thought would notice her…let alone become the person who quietly, entirely, rewired her world.

Samode Palace felt like the only place to tell this story. A 475-year-old monument to Rajput grandeur, hand-painted frescoes and chandelier-lit chambers, sitting in the Aravalli hills 45 kilometres outside Jaipur. The kind of destination wedding venue that doesn’t just host a celebration — it becomes part of it.

Guests flew in from across the world for a weekend of haldi, sangeet, ceremony and a welcome dinner that ended with Roberto’s Spanish friends discovering that Rajasthan is, in fact, an excellent place to take shots with your best mates.

This is their story. All of it.

The Welcome Dinner

Two worlds, one courtyard. Spain met Rajasthan over speeches, toasts, and eventually, shots. There is photographic evidence of the latter. It is magnificent.

By the time the courtyard filled with dancing and the palace dome glowed behind them, this was no longer a welcome dinner. It was just a party. The kind that reminds you why you flew halfway across the world.

The Haldi

The next morning, this destination wedding at Samode Palace, Jaipur woke up in colour.

Before the haldi chaos descended – and it very much would – there was a quieter hour inside the palace. Niharika in a patchwork lehenga that looked like it had been designed specifically to compete with the frescoes. Roberto in a matching nehru jacket, which told you everything you needed to know about how seriously this couple took their outfits. And some of the most beautiful portraits we’ve shot in seventeen years of destination weddings in Rajasthan.

Friends and family poured into the courtyard in a wave of mustard and pink, colour smoke guns raised, marigolds flying. This was a phoolan-ki-haldi in the truest sense, loud, joyful and completely unscripted. Pavleen Gujraal kept the energy moving through games that had everyone, grandmothers included, thoroughly involved. Roberto, to his enormous credit, did not flinch once.

The Sangeet

If the haldi was sunlight, the sangeet was electricity.

Niharika walked in wearing a rose gold ball gown that had no business being as extraordinary as it was, and the palace somehow kept up. The stage performances that followed had everyone on their feet, including the grandmothers, who frankly stole the show. By the time the afterparty began, notes were flying through the air, Roberto was being crowd-surfed by his friends in a sherwani, and someone had decided the kebab grill was just as important a part of the evening as the dance floor. They were not wrong.

The Wedding Day

By the time the wedding morning arrived, Samode had seen three days of celebrating and still looked like it had dressed up just for this. Roberto waited in ivory, flanked by friends who had flown across the world and somehow found sherwanis. Niharika spent the morning in the palace corridors, in a crimson lehenga so intricately worked it told its own story – temples, elephants, gold thread running through deep red velvet. When she finally walked towards him, he covered his face. The rest of the room held its breath.

The friends’ reaction said everything that needed saying.

Part 2: The Baraat, Jaimala & Ceremony

Roberto arrived the way every groom should — standing in a vintage red open-top car, his mother beside him, both arms raised, the Aravallis at his back. His friends had already found the dhol. The baraat that followed was exactly what it should be: loud, joyful, and completely impossible to resist.

The mandap sat open to the Rajasthan sky, the Aravallis rising behind it. It was the kind of ceremony that reminds you exactly why couples choose a destination wedding at Samode Palace, Jaipur over anywhere else in the world. Inside, the ceremony was unhurried and deeply felt. Roberto applied the sindoor with the same quiet focus he had brought to every moment of this weekend. When it was over, the palace sent up fireworks.

The Reception

For the last night, they changed everything.

Roberto arrived in black tie. Niharika arrived in white … an embroidered saree that looked like it had been dusted with frost, worn with a backless blouse and a polki choker that caught every light in the room. After four days of colour and ceremony, the contrast was striking. Samode’s warm arches and amber sconces did exactly what they always do. They made everything look like a film still.

They entered through red flares under a smoke-filled sky, walked a same day edit of their entire wedding weekend, and then danced. The palace glowed behind them. Roberto’s friends crowd-surfed him one final time, because of course they did. By the end of the night there were tears and long hugs and the kind of laughter that only comes when a weekend has genuinely delivered everything it promised.

A Note from Twogether

Niharika and Roberto’s destination wedding at Samode Palace, Jaipur is exactly the kind of story we started Twogether Studios to tell. Since 2008, we’ve documented over 700 weddings across India and around the world…and the ones that stay with you longest are always the ones where the people are just genuinely, obviously, in love. This was one of those. If you’re planning a destination wedding in Rajasthan and want photography and film that captures what actually happened, we’d love to hear from you.

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Vendor Credits

Photography and Film: @twogetherstudios.in
Wedding Planning: @premierlifestyleevents
Social Media Coverage: @twogethersocial
Venue: @samode_hotels
Bride’s Outfit: @asianacoutureofficial
Bridal Makeup: @jasminebajwva
Bridal Hair: @shadab.hair