Niki Patel and Dip Rana booked the venues for their wedding in Antigua, Guatemala, before they had ever set foot in the city. They had spent months looking at destinations that looked beautiful on paper but felt interchangeable, until photographs of Antigua’s cobbled streets, restored ruins and volcano-lined landscape stopped them mid-scroll. “The people, the streets, the colours… there was something about it that felt ancient and familiar in a way we couldn’t fully explain,” says Rana.
For Patel and Rana, both originally from New Jersey and now based in Chicago, the wedding became an extension of the life they had spent nearly a decade building together. Patel works in corporate finance but has long been drawn to fashion, interiors and photography. Rana is a resident physician in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation with a self-described love for humour, relaxed tailoring and discovering new restaurants.
Their relationship began during Halloween weekend at Rutgers University in 2015. They crossed paths at consecutive parties before eventually becoming friends months later, after Rana invited Patel to his fraternity formal. “Dip was sweet,” Patel says. “But more than his genuine kindness, he made me laugh.”
The relationship grew gradually from there, built through everyday rituals and shared decisions. Medical school applications, career moves and eventually a relocation to Chicago all became joint conversations. “Making things official felt less like simply deciding to date and more like making a commitment to one another to build a life together,” says Patel.
Rana proposed during a trip to Malibu after orchestrating an entire day of misdirection. Breakfast overlooking the Pacific Ocean, a picnic at Point Dume State Beach and wine with family at Cielo Farms Vineyard all convinced Patel that the proposal was moments away. Each time, nothing happened. “For the third time that day, I thought, okay, this has to be where Dip is proposing,” she recalls. Only later that evening did Rana drive her through winding roads lined with wildflowers before leading her to a secluded hilltop overlooking Malibu. “That’s where he proposed,” Patel says. “I said yes and the rest is history.”
The emotional weight of the wedding shifted further after the passing of Rana’s father in 2023. “We became even more aware of how rare it is to have everyone you love together in one place at the same time,” Patel says. That feeling carried through nearly every part of the wedding weekend.
“We wanted people to feel like they were there with us, not just there for us,” Rana says.
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