Nikki Khan has had an affinity for travel, culture, and entertainment since she was a young girl. With her father being an avid traveler, she was already a seasoned globetrotter by the age of twelve, and spent her teenage years attending and finishing school in Switzerland. This unique and worldly background helped shape Nikki’s entire approach to life – especially in regards to her wedding planning and design company, Exquisite Events. “How you do anything is how you do everything,” Nikki states. “Everything, from dressing well, to using proper language.”
By focusing on an uncompromising level of quality and solely booking clients that fit with the Exquisite Events approach, Nikki’s successful venture later turned into a family business with her daughter, Madiha. After studying psychology and finance, Madi joined Nikki and an incredible mother-daughter duo was born. “We bounce ideas off one another,” Nikki describes. “It’s a very close collaboration.”
Adding Madi to the team brought a new style into the mix. While Nikki has always been inspired by old movies and classic fashion houses, Madi’s preferences tend to be edgier. “Over the years, I’ve also become a little more classic, and I like to see the romantic side of the event,” she says. “Of course, we’re a mother-daughter team and we don’t always see eye to eye. But at the end of the day, I always admire and trust Nikki’s design aesthetic.”
When it comes to inspiration, both women emphasize the importance of travel. Whether she’s strolling along the streets of Paris or Budapest, Nikki is constantly deriving ideas from the cafés, shopping malls and window displays she encounters, noting how a single chandelier can be enough to spark a unique design concept. “There’s things that you’ll never see here in the states,” Madi agrees. “It’s nice to bring that aesthetic here – to bring something fresh from abroad.”
The dynamic of having two distinct styles has worked to Madi and Nikki’s advantage, as it gives them a larger realm of creativity when brainstorming for a client’s wedding. With eighty percent of their clientele consisting of multi-day Indian weddings and back-to-back events, the pair is often responsible for designing an entire week’s worth of décor themes for a single couple.
From providing clients with visual story boards detailing the events, to organizing accommodations for hundreds of guests, months of intense work go into creating the perfect ambiance. “When I walk into a room, I want it to feel like a warm hug,” Madi illustrates. “The candlelight, the lighting–as a guest or the designer for an event, I just want it to feel comfortable and inviting.”
As for Nikki, seeing a wedding come to fruition is both rewarding and sentimental. “I find it heartwarming that these kids are second generation; but when it comes to their wedding ceremonies, they are so traditional,” she says. “They want to pay homage to all those aspects that are important to their culture.” Weddings by Exquisite Events are truly a beautiful blend of love, modernity, and heritage.
