On Wednesdays, Giuliana Francesca Cerullo and Abhipsit Srivastava have date night. On Monday mornings, they take a walk through Brooklyn Heights to start the workweek. During the holidays, they see “The Nutcracker” at Lincoln Center, and in the summers, they vacation in Paris. In the evenings, they take turns tucking each other into bed.
Over the nearly five years that they have been together, these rituals have come to make up what the couple calls their “parampara.” Parampara is a Hindi word that loosely translates to “tradition” in English. For Cerullo and Srivastava, it means the shared habits they’ve built together.
They met in 2021, on a Reddit thread organizing a gathering for Brooklynites. After messaging for about a month, they decided to meet in person at the Clover Club, a bar in Brooklyn. They both showed up wearing all black, which Cerullo calls their “New York City uniform.”
Immediately, the connection felt easy. “I’m a very curious person, and often in dating prior, I wasn’t met with that same level of curiosity,” Cerullo said. Srivastava, in contrast, asked deep questions. Cerullo appreciated the care he invested in getting to know her.
For Srivastava, that care came easily. “I felt like I didn’t have to try to perform,” he said. “I could just be myself and have an organic conversation. And it was a fun conversation.”
Cerullo said she realized that Srivastava was the one while she was away visiting her parents in North Carolina in August 2021. “I really, really missed him,” she said. The relief she felt when they reunited made her realize, “Oh my God, this is something really, really special.” Shortly after, the couple made their relationship official.
Cerullo, 29, is the manager of sales associates at Justworks, a software company based in New York, and holds a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, Canada. She was born in Yonkers, N.Y., and raised in Mahopac, N.Y.
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Srivastava, 30, is a senior finance manager at Mammoth Brands, a consumer packaged goods company based in New York, and holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from Indiana University Bloomington. He was born in Lucknow, India, and grew up in Oswego, Ill.
In late 2022, they moved into an apartment in Brooklyn Heights, and talks of marriage became more frequent.
Srivastava proposed in Paris in July 2023, during what has become their annual trip, almost two years after they met. On their way to the Palais Garnier opera house, they passed through a secluded spot in the Tuileries Garden. “I saw my shot,” said Srivastava, who knew that Cerullo wanted the proposal to be private. He got down on one knee.
“We sprinted afterward to make our opera show time,” Srivastava said.
The two were wed on April 18 at Bacchus, a French bistro in the Boerum Hill area of Brooklyn. Rashad Kulam, a close friend of the couple and Srivastava’s best man, was ordained as a one-day officiant by the New York City Clerk’s Office and performed the ceremony.
The wedding was attended by 85 guests, including Srivastava’s parents, who flew more than 20 hours from India. Each person received a handwritten card from the couple.
Parampara played as important a role in their wedding as it does in their relationship. In a nod to Cerullo’s Italian heritage, she walked down the aisle to “Ave Maria,” performed by a live harpist. At the reception, Cerullo and her father danced to Andrea Bocelli’s “Con Te Partirò.”
In recognition of Srivastava’s Indian heritage, the couple performed their own version of a “saat phere,” a Hindu tradition in which a couple takes seven laps around a fire. The laps represent “seven lifetimes together,” said Srivastava. For the couple’s version, Cerullo wrote seven intentions for their marriage, which Kulam read aloud at the ceremony.
Cerullo wore a Justin Alexander dress from Kleinfeld Bridal. Srivastava wore a bandhgala suit top by the Indian designer Anita Dongre and pants from the Swedish brand Grand Lè Mar. “I wanted to celebrate my Indian heritage from the top and my American roots from the bottom,” he said.
While reciting her vows, Cerullo promised to keep trying to outdo Srivastava as they alternate planning their Wednesday night dates. In his vows, Srivastava quoted from Maya Angelou’s poem “Touched by an Angel,” and promised always to make time for their bedtime routine.
After they left their wedding, which was just a 10-minute walk from their apartment, they spent the evening at home and had pizza delivered at midnight.
“Abhipsit to me is just pure happiness and love of life,” Cerullo said, adding that she pictures their life together as “continued joy.”
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