From the bride... We actually first met in March 2010 at a party celebrating the Persian new year. Farzad’s best man, Saman, was actually our mutual friend and we met through him. After that initial meeting, we didn’t see each other for 5 years until reconnecting again in 2015 through Saman again. After hanging out a couple of times, he asked me to be his date at an upcoming gala and the rest is history! Funny thing is that when our parents met for the first time, they actually ended up already knowing each other through the Persian community. It felt like it was meant to be from the very beginning! 3 years after our first date, Farzad said he had a special day planned to celebrate this milestone. He told me we had reservations for a fancy restaurant for lunch and were getting drinks at one of my favorite spots downtown. He told me to dress up for the occasion. While strolling through downtown Ottawa on our way to lunch, we were approached by 2 young photographers who asked if they could take photos of us for their new studio website. To be honest, I was a bit hesitant at first, but seeing how willing Farzad was, I agreed to do it. The photographers guided several poses, one of which I turned my back to Farzad. They told me to turn around for the next picture, and when I did he was standing on one knee! After the initial SHOCK, I said YES of course!

Since we’re both Persian, we wanted to incorporate cultural traditions into our wedding day, while still keeping some western elements. We did a traditional Iranian ceremony with a Sofreh Aghd (table spread with various objects that each have meaning to celebrate the new marriage). We both had bridesmaids/groomsmen and did the traditional father/daughter dances. We had two first dances so that we could incorporate both Persian dancing and a western slow dance. After our grand entrance into the reception hall, we did our Persian dance that’s more upbeat. For our slow dance, we had all our guests go outside with sparklers and we walked through the sparklers and had our slow dance—it was magical! Our venue was Le Belvedere —famous for its cliffside views and romantic atmosphere. We were originally supposed to get married in 2020, but like many other couples, we had to delay it to 2021 due to COVID. This also meant we had to reduce our guest list to 80. Considering Persian weddings usually have over 200 guests (some reaching 400), this was more of an intimate affair! In the end, we loved this guestlist number since it meant that we got to interact with every guest making it that much more special and memorable. Since our venue has such an incredible view, we didn’t need to go overboard on decor and florals. Our main themes were classy, romantic, and elegant. Our color palette was dusty rose, dark green/sage green, and gold. The bridesmaids wore dusty rose while the groomsmen wore light grey.

For the ceremony we had a traditional Persian table spread set up, called the Sofreh Aghd. Each object on the table symbolizes something related to the new marriage (e.g. sweetness, fertility, prosperity, fruitful future). We sat at the front of this beautiful spread during our ceremony and a canopy was held over our heads by members of our family. As the ceremony took place, members of the family took turns grinding sugar cones together so that the sugar granules fell into the canopy, symbolically showering us with sweetness for our marriage. The table that’s needed for the Persian spread needs to be a specific height so that guests could still see us during the ceremony with all of the items that are required. We couldn’t actually find a table that met our needs, but luckily my husband is a talented woodworker and so he was able to build us the table we ended up using! It added a special element to use something he built for our day and it was something only a few people knew about.