Faiza & Nadeem’s Shadi Ceremony
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009One of my goals for this year was to gain more experience shooting the weddings of other cultures. I was particularly interested in photographing Desi weddings, as they involve so many amazing colors and details. Desi is a word that comes from Sanskrit, and means “of the country,” and is typically used to refer to the people and culture of South Asia, including India and Pakistan.
My good friend Saad Syed is a Raleigh Wedding Photographer who has built a reputation as being one of the preeminent photographers of Desi weddings on the east coast, so I contacted him to see if I could tag along for one of his bookings. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to shoot the Shadi Ceremony of Faiza and Nadeem in Durham, NC with Saad and his wife Mahroo.
Desi weddings are commonly held over three days:
-The Mehndi Ceremony is the bride’s henna ceremony
-The Shadi Ceremony is the main wedding ceremony hosted by the bride’s family
-The Valima Ceremony is a reception held by the groom’s family
Each of these ceremonies may differ significantly based on the religion of the participants (Muslim or Hindu), and the particular cultural and family traditions of the couple. Faiza and Nadeem are Indian-American Muslims. Thank you to Faiza, Nadeem, and both of your families for welcoming me into your ceremony, and thanks to Saad and Mahroo for being such generous hosts.
Nadeem’s Mother
my friend Saad, “in action”
the ring ceremony
It is a Desi tradition that the female relatives of the bride steal the shoe or shoes of the groom, and he must pay them to get his footwear back. The bargaining process can be exciting, and very entertaining.
Our Wedding
Saturday, October 30th, 2004Back in 2004, Amanda and I lived near Raleigh, NC. I was finishing up the Special Forces Qualification Course, and Amanda worked for NC State in their distance education department. We were engaged to be married, and although I didn’t even have an inkling that I would one day become a wedding photographer, the quality and style of our wedding photography was our number one priority in planning our wedding.
We stopped in at Helios for a coffee one day, and found a card for a young lady named Kyra Shelley, advertising “lifestyle photojournalism.” We had a limited idea of what that meant, but we thought it looked interesting and unconventional. We met with Kyra, and found that she pursued a style of wedding photography that included almost no posed pictures: a documentary of the day as it happened. She shot exclusively on black and white film, in both 35mm and medium formats. She developed and printed all of her work by hand. We were thrilled with this unusual approach, and although it far exceeded the original budget we’d set for photography, decided to book Kyra.
Our wedding photos aren’t flashy or trendy. We don’t look like supermodels. However, when we look back through our wedding album, or to the prints on the walls of our bedroom, the images serve as a window into the past. They’re real. They’re non-fiction photographs. They’ll never go out of style because the content is meaningful to us, and Kyra did a great job of catching characteristic expressions and subtle moments.
So when I prepare to photograph a wedding for my clients, I like to think back to the images that matter to us now (almost five years later as I write this), and focus on creating images with meaningful content.
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
image by Kyra Shelley
