Postcard from paradise

Newlyweds Tamanna Malhotra and Daniel Mullen, who outpaced an Italian thunderstorm during their East-meets-West wedding, are proof that love really does conquer all.

- HASINA KHATIB

Pop culture would have you believe that love can strike in a cascade of cosmic showers or that Cupid will make his presence known with a trumpeted trill. But it can also lurk in the most unexpected places and wash over you quietly on a sun-kissed Boston morning when you witness the man of your dreams beam at the cherubic face of his niece. For Tamanna Malhotra, watching Daniel Mullen with his family made her feel like she had finally come home after a long day, a warmth that she wanted to hold on to for the rest of her life.

When a chance meeting at a bar blossomed into an eight-hour-long conversation until the staff asked the pair to leave, Malhotra, a Punjab-born, Boston-based product manager, and Mullen, a Boston-based partnership manager and ex-Goldman Sachs associate, embarked on a blissful courtship of two years. With the sudden advent of the coronavirus pandemic axing any serious plans for the future, she left for his annual gathering at the family lake house in Vermont, expecting nothing more eventful than dinner and drinks with loved ones. However, when the boat geared up to dock, they were greeted by his nieces holding up a sign with the words ‘Will you marry me?’ emblazoned on it, followed by an unexpectedly sentimental Mullen sliding a ring fitted with an ethically sourced diamond from South Africa onto her finger.