“Low-waste living, for me, is not about perfection. It is about intention. It is about asking what is actually necessary, what can be reused, and what does not need to be created in the first place,” says Damini Arora.

In Mumbai, where weddings play out like grand productions with endless decor, heavy logistics and equally heavy waste, Damini and Kunal Keswani chose something low-key. Not smaller in love or meaning, but certainly smaller in footprint. 

Their wedding in Thane was not designed to announce itself as sustainable. There were no attempts to make a statement. Instead, sustainability appeared in the details, in decisions that were made early, and in things that were deliberately not done at all.

The bride runs Meraki Digital, a communications agency that works with climate-conscious and impact-driven brands. For her, sustainability is not a concept that begins with big moments. It is something that lives in daily choices. Her husband is a producer in the Hindi film and creative industry. His relationship with sustainability, he admits, began much later, and largely through his wife’s influence and the conversations they shared over time.

“I would not say I came into this thinking about impact. But when you are with someone who constantly questions consumption, you start noticing things differently. It stays with you,” he tells The Better India.

A Himalayan trek where everything changed

Their story did not begin in Mumbai, but in Spiti Valley in 2018. Damini was on a sabbatical then, working with initiatives linked to Indiahikes, focused on waste management in Himalayan villages. Her work involved not just trekking but also sitting with local communities, understanding how waste moved through fragile mountain ecosystems, and helping build systems to manage it.

“I was not there as a tourist,” she says. “It was field work. Schools, villages, and shopkeepers were trying to figure out how waste could even be handled in such remote places.”

It was during this period that Kunal came into the picture, after reaching out to her on Instagram about joining a trek she was helping organise. Over the next nine days, the two travelled through Spiti in a way neither of them remembers casually.

“There were days when we did not even know whether we would make it to the next village because of landslides, snow and broken roads, and that uncertainty somehow made the journey feel even more unforgettable,” she says.

At Key Monastery, where the group stayed overnight, the connection between them grew naturally.

“That was the first time we really spoke properly. We were spending time together, and it all felt very organic. We were genuinely enjoying each other’s company, so we just told each other, let’s give this a shot and see where it goes. That was where it all began for us,” she adds.

Kunal remembers it in his own way. “It was my first time doing something like that. I was........

© The Better India