"She's not one of those brooding depressed artists who wear black all the time", said Shivali Shah, a friend. "She's one of the happiest people I know."
Ms. Saluja grew up in Old Brookville on Long Island. Her parents, both doctors who emigrated from India, belong to a tight-knit Sikh community in which young men and women are discouraged from going out together.
"In India there's no such thing as recreational dating", the bride said. "The only reason one would date is for the sole purpose of finding a spouse".
It was assumed that Ms. Saluja would enter an arranged marriage in her 20s with someone who shared a similar background, but not necessarily a person she knew well. "The idea is, love comes after marriage."
As it turned out, she met Andrew Gibbons, a Methodist who grew up in Maryland, five years ago when she was a student at Barnard College and he was at Columbia University. They became friends, and over the years began falling in love. Or, as Ms. Saluja gently put it, "We began having feelings for each other."
Like Ms. Saluja, Mr Gibbons, now 26 and a professional pianist, is a cheerful artist.
"He's the perfect combination of a guy's guy and a sensitive guy", said Lorna Whittemore, a friend. "He can watch football one second and be at the Philharmonic crying over Rachmaninov the next. He's good for a pillow fight as well as an in-depth conversation."
A year and a half ago, over dinner with the bride's parents, the couple announced their hopes to marry. "My father said: `OK, you want to get married. But tell me why and give me any other reason besides you're in love' ", Ms. Saluja recalled. "They didn't want our relationship to be based on pure attraction."
The couple replied that they were best friends and fellow artists, both worked long hours alone, and placed happiness over financial security.
"We got the green light", the bride said.
On July 26, they were married in a traditional Sikh wedding beneath a tent outside the bride's house. The 500 guests sat barefoot on the floor, men on one side and women on the other. The women, most wearing traditional Punjabi outfits with head scarves, huddled together looking like pieces of a vibrant puzzle.
As the ceremony began, one could hear the bride arriving. She wore bangles and bells on her wrists, earrings that looked like small wind chimes, a red sari, and a glittery embroidered shawl. "Her shawl must weight 20 pounds", the bridegroom said a few days earlier. "It's laden with gold thread and mirrors. I think it's bulletproof." He wore a long white jacket and matching leggings for the ceremony.
During the ceremony, Giani Jagtar Singh Jachak, a Sikh priest, sang holy verses as the bride and the bridegroom stared ahead, still as statues. "There isn't a lot of eye contact between the bride and the groom", Ms. Saluja said. "Typically, you'd be going through the wedding ceremony with someone you didn't know well. The bride would be like 'OK, I've known this person a month' or 'I've written him five letters' ".
Later, after an Indian feast and yogurt drinks as colourful as saris, the bride performed a few final rites as a way of saying goodbye to her parents and her girlhood. She threw five fistfuls of rice behind her, and changed into clothes brought by the Gibbonses, her new family.
"As I was leaving the house, my aunt said, 'You're supposed to flick a light switch on and walk out of the house and don't look back' ", Ms Saluja said. "She kept saying 'Don't look back'. I didn't think I would cry, but I bawled."