Protected: mahvish and omar: virginia wedding photography
July 9, 2010 | Filed Under wedding posts | Enter your password to view comments
omar and alia: durham wedding photography
June 9, 2010 | Filed Under wedding posts | 13 Comments
i have so much to blog all of a sudden! and i know i haven’t been doing so well! so i do apologize… but first, i’m truly excited to share some images from omar and alia’s wedding, which took place may 30 at the beautiful millennium hotel in durham.
i’ve said before, i love shooting in the raleigh muslim community, because it’s where i grew up; i actually came to this wedding through an old friend who is now a cake decorator and baker extraordinaire – whose wedding was, incidentally, one of the VERY first i ever shot, years ago! but i also knew the groom’s family from childhood; omar’s sister, reem, was one of my good friends growing up, and i knew her parents pretty well, too, from the local masjid. and i’m pretty sure i have seen alia’s family over the years… years ago!
anyway. whether i remembered them or not, it was an absolute joy to see how truly happy omar and alia were with each other: there is usually something about every wedding that stays with me long after i’ve finished processing the pictures, and what i will always remember from this one are the smiles on each of their faces when they looked at each other. they’d get LOST in the middle of all the music, lights and people – subhanallah! i pray that your marriage always grows in the light of that love, omar and alia, and that God blesses both you and your families.
since alia – and many of the women who attended this wedding – wear hijab, i won’t be sharing many of the pictures from the earlier part of the day, or the women’s section after the men left and they got down and partied! but here are some of the moments i CAN share, including the fantastic groom’s cake alia had made as a surprise for omar, as well as some of the general fun and horsing around that went on as the evening progressed.
yasmin & tyseer: walima | minneapolis wedding photography
April 19, 2010 | Filed Under wedding posts | 20 Comments
i think these two have set a record for the number of events held to celebrate their union – six or seven over the course of two years, mashallah! but this was the very last of them, and now the partying is over and married life truly begins 
the walima is the reception traditionally given by the groom’s side of the family, so this event took place in minneapolis, where tyseer grew up with his two brothers. downtown minneapolis was busy, warm and bright on this weekend – the radisson plaza hotel was the perfect place to host the last of “tysmin’s” wedding celebrations, and extended family and friends gathered from across the country to join in. yasmin – who wore a white dress and a dark blue and red lehnga at her wedding, to honor the arab and pakistani aspects of her heritage – this time donned a stunning red-and-gold sari, wrapped expertly by her mother-in-law, to honor the new bengali side of her family.
what with the speeches, dancing and antics of the bride and groom’s friends, i don’t think anyone missed out on a good time – not even the photographer. but even more than that, i am profoundly grateful for how welcome i was made by tyseer’s family in minneapolis and how kindly i was taken care of. thank you SO MUCH, auntie taslima and the rest of your family, for making me feel like part of your family, too – and yasmin and tyseer, thank you both for trusting me to capture your wedding and allowing me into your lives. i can’t wait to see more of you guys when you move closer to my neck of the woods!
yasmin & tyseer: wedding | raleigh wedding photography
April 6, 2010 | Filed Under wedding posts | 19 Comments
so, as promised, here are yasmin and tyseer’s wedding pictures! well, a few of them… still plenty more i’m working through! but i wanted to share these as soon as possible. as i said in the mehndi post, it was such a joy for me to be involved in this wedding as i was – my family was invited anyway, as guests, but i had the honor and pleasure of capturing it as photographer.
i also met tyseer and his family before this wedding; tyseer’s wonderful mother got in touch with me after she met me at the wedding of her best friend’s daughter, sanjana, which i blogged about in january. so amidst the friends i grew up with – yasmin is part of the generation a few years younger than me who are going through the “wedding phase” now – it was honestly one of the best times i’ve had photographing a wedding. i was especially excited because yasmin is one of those AWESOME brides who actually schedules enough time to allow for more creative bridal portraits; i also enjoyed being able to photograph two different bridal gowns, as yasmin – with her mixed heritage of syrian and pakistani – donned both a white wedding gown with hijab and a traditional pakistani lehnga (though in a unique dark blue and red combination!) during the course of the evening. in two weeks i’ll get to picture yasmin in yet another bridal dress – a sari, at her walima celebration in minnesota which will be rooted in tyseer’s bangladeshi culture.
yasmin’s shaadi, or wedding celebration, was held at the beautiful, classy brier creek country club in raleigh, so we got to take advantage of a sweet little courtyard designed for weddings and portraits, as well as the gently rolling golf course right next door. we had been worried that the sun might be too glaring for our late afternoon portraits, and then that it might rain, but we ended up with the softest, cloud-filtered, golden sunset light one could imagine. after portraits, everything took place indoors, and the families had a series of wedding traditions and rituals – a shared drink, a cake-cutting, the traditional desi shoe-stealing (which ended up in yasmin’s shoes being stolen, too – very untraditional! – some punjabi dancing from the men, and the bride’s friends blocking the couple’s way out at the end for payment from the groom’s brother and friends (that shot at the bottom with the ladies lined up in front of the door? yeah… that’s not a pose )
hope you all enjoy this – please leave a comment if you do! at the end of the pictures there’s a slideshow with about twice as many images, if you want to see more of the wedding story
EDIT: meant to add i COULD NOT HAVE DONE THIS WITHOUT MY AMAZING SECOND SHOOTER, sara haddad, with whom i’ve shot two weddings before this. sara took a few of the shots you see below, including the AWESOME capture of tyseer dancing. she captured some great moments from angles and places where i couldn’t be, and definitely made this wedding story complete.
and here, if you have the time and want to sit back and relax with it, is a somewhat longer slideshow with a fuller story of the wedding day – hope you all enjoy it!
