It was a prescription for love: Doctors Jyoti Sharma and Lan Pham celebrated both their marriage and cultural diversity in front of 120 friends and family members at a classic Louisiana plantation.
The Bride Jyoti Sharma, 29, rehabilitation medicine physician
The Groom Lan Pham, 30, internal medicine physician
The Date March 6
After a four-year friendship during medical school, secret admirer Lan confessed his feelings for fellow classmate Jyoti by sending her a CD. It swept her off her feet. "Once I found out Lan was my secret admirer, I fell in love with him and his romantic nature," says Jyoti. They began to date even though Lan would soon begin his residency in Baton Rouge and Jyoti would be on her way to Seattle.
When Lan planned to propose after two years of long-distance dating, he was inspired by a dream Jyoti once had. "I was going off to war," Lan recalls, "and I left her a message to meet me in the fields before I shipped out." Instead of a rendezvous in the fields, the anxious suitor left a message for Jyoti to meet him at the base of the Space Needle in Seattle. They then went for a ride on a Ferris wheel, where Lan surprised Jyoti with a proposal at the top. "I was so happy and filled with tears," Jyoti says. "Of course I said yes!"
-- Ciara J. Vincent