Multicultural Wedding with European Flavor at Bavaria Downs

Italian Wedding: August 9, 2020; private home in Oak Grove
Christian Wedding & Reception: August 13, 2020; Bavaria Downs in Chanhassen

Aneeta Babulal and Jonathon Boor Boor’s wedding was something of an international event. Aneeta, who is of Indian descent and grew up in Guyana, and Jonathon, who is of Persian and American descent and is from Pine City, Minnesota, initially planned their dream wedding for Villa del Balbianello in Italy. Everything was planned and booked. Then COVID struck, and Aneeta’s family, living in Switzerland, told the couple that the Italian border was closing. The couple waited to see how things would pan out, but eventually made a new plan: an Indian wedding (lasting only two days instead of the traditional three or four), followed by a smaller Christian ceremony at Bavaria Downs. (Aneeta was smitten by the venue. “It wasn’t Italy, but had so many European elements.”) She literally incorporated the flavor of their cultures in the celebrations, asking the caterers to re-create the Jon’s favorite dish, his late grandmother’s Persian orange-peel rice with chicken, for the menu. In another nod to their roots, Aneeta added a magical note to their cake, using a golden “Aladdin’s lamp” as a cake topper.