Indian couple’s lavish wedding takes over New York: Bride and groom shut down Fifth Avenue

New York City’s famous streets are increasingly witnessing grand Indian wedding celebrations, as traditional baraats bring colour, music and energy to some of its most iconic locations. In a recent event, Midtown Manhattan transformed into a lively dance floor as a traditional Indian baraat took over one of the city’s most famous avenues, drawing the attention of both locals and social media users.

The celebration was part of the wedding of Avish Jain and Pankti Doshi, who hosted a lavish multi-day ceremony in New York. A viral video shared by wedding content creator Amrish Patel captured the couple’s baraat shutting down Fifth Avenue, with hundreds of guests dressed in traditional Indian outfits dancing energetically.

At the centre of the procession, the couple stood on an open vehicle – Jain singing live while Doshi danced joyfully with the crowd – creating a spectacle rarely seen on the city’s streets.
The video, captioned “When the bride & groom shut down 5th Avenue and live sing their way into their Baraat and Wedding,” quickly gained massive traction on social media.

Unlike conventional New York weddings, Jain and Doshi’s celebration stood out for its scale and creativity. Their five-day wedding, held from April 21 to 25, spanned multiple venues and featured several DJs, choreographers, designers, and thousands of floral arrangements, reported the New York Post.

Grew up in San Francisco, Doshi is a genetic counsellor and co-founder of one of the city’s largest South Asian music festivals, Masala Mixtape. While Jain, who was raised in New Jersey, is a classically trained Bollywood singer and dancer and will also graduate in two months as a certified endocrinologist. The couple combined their creativity and culture to create a wedding that also showed their love for the city they call home.

Their story began in late 2023 when they met through a professional collaboration, eventually leading to a relationship that culminated in this lavish wedding. As Doshi shared, the idea was to create not just a wedding, but an experience that reflected their journey and celebrated the people who supported them.

“Both of us grew independently in New York City. We wanted (this wedding) to be not just about us, but everyone who cared for us, worked with us and believed in our bigger vision. That’s why we wanted to host everything in NYC — to give everybody the true New York City experience,” Doshi told The Post.

This is not the first time New York has witnessed such celebrations. In a similar event last year, an Indian wedding procession took over Wall Street, where nearly 400 guests danced through the streets of Lower Manhattan. The event, powered by DJ AJ, was described as a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ experience.