Chelsea Harbour Hotel Wedding
Zahra & Zubair’s Wedding Day
This is the second in a series of three posts to cover the whole of Zahra and Zubair’s traditional Indian wedding celebrations, it was an absolute pleasure to be able to document all the colourful rituals and to be made so welcome by the families.
The day started for me at Zahra’s family home where her family had gathered to be part of her preparations and traditional rituals. All the rituals, such as leaving under the Koran and Zahra throwing rice over her shoulder, have deep meaning but also build the tension and emotion throughout the day as they head towards the wedding ceremony.
At the same time my second shooter, Sophie Duckworth, was photographing Zubair’s preparations. The groom’s preparations are just as colourful and full of tradition and ritual as the bride’s.
Zubair arrived at the Chelsea Harbour Hotel to the accompaniment of traditional drummers and then had to bribe his way through the ladies to enter the main room. The atmosphere was building throughout the day, I’d no idea what to expect from the final exit of the Zahra & Zubair but it was unbelievably emotional!
In line with tradition the evening celebrations were held at Zubair’s family home with lots more rituals to welcome Zahra to the family.
Such a wonderful day, full of colour, fantastic food, lots of emotion, beautiful traditions and such a kind and loving couple with such welcoming families.
It really was an honour to be part of the celebrations.
The rest of the series can be found here:
Walima
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