Roohie and Shan invited us to photograph both their Nikkah and Valima over two days this summer. The images below are from their Nikkah (wedding ceremony) that took place at Royal Palace Banquet Hall in Fremont. Prior to going to the venue, the couple and I met up at the Palace of Fine Arts to do a portrait session before the event.
Roohie and Shan are a beautiful couple and it was so much fun photographing them at the Palace. They simply went into poses effortlessly and we got so many great shots in a pretty short amount of time. When we got to their venue all the guests were there and they quickly made separate entrances into two different rooms. One room had all the men and the Imam who would marry the couple, and the other room had the bride with all the women. Through the speaker system both rooms could hear the words from the Imam and the ceremony was conducted and complete within 30 minutes or so.
Then the groom’s side made their way over to the bride’s side for a short time before going back to their own room for dinner. At the end of the event the bride and groom left the event while saying goodbye to her family in what is known as the Rukhsati. They drove off and that ended day number one. The next event is the wedding reception, which is known as Valima and will be coming up in the next blog post!
