Long time no blog! It's been a hectic couple of weeks with weddings, work and w-dieting - just wanted to keep the alliteration. Anyways, Dexter kindly offered me to a chance to tag along with him to shoot Mohamed & Khadija's weddomg on the 22nd May (last Saturday). How could I say no? First what a lovely, down to earth couple with such lovely families - congratulations to you both!
We arrived at the groom's place at around lunch time and we were greeted by Mo. He was quite at ease and feeling a bit under the weather - although it didn't show it all. We were surrounded by his family including some v. photogenic young nephews that were not shy at all! Here are some snaps at his parents home.
Here are some of the cute nephews I was talking about. I was testing out my new tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 lens with a borrowed (thanks S) d700 which meant i had a great arm work out throughout the day. Anyways, Dex encouraged me to test out the zooming capability and here are some of the snaps I took of the nephews. The nephew eating his meal whilst trying to watch WWF wresting is so funny!
More family arrived including some adorable nieces who were so pretty in their white taffeta dresses and matching tiaras - extermely cute. We got some nice shots with all the nephews and nieces together as well.
I love this photo of Rae, playing with her aunt's iphone!
The parents were absolutley brimming with joy at this happy occassion and it such a nice event to be apart of. Lots of singing, clapping and processios which I thoroughly enjoyed. Mum & Dad were so proud!
A few family portraits by the pool and fixing up their outfits we're ready to head to the brides house
We arrive at the brides house but we're kept in suspense as the bride is not there yet! So we wait with anticipation until she arrives with her 2 bridesmaids. What a stunning dress, I've never seen anything quite like it!
We then walk in the house and the videographer takes charge and tells Khadija how he would like her to pose and we start snapping away - here are a couple of my favourites. well a few.
I may have lied about a 'few', here are two black and white ones I took of the bride. I especially like the reaction of her male relative after receiving a kiss
After getting the portraits of the bride, the groom arrived and we started what I can only describe as the meeting and greeting of relatives. The room is filled wall to wall with women who are on the perimeter of the room and the men stand on the outskirts. It was so wonderful to see so much colour! I've never seen so much at a wedding before! Admist this was chanting, clapping and some dancing at the end. So incredible to witness.
There were some emotional moments where some of the women in the room did tear up including the bride which was v. touching to see.
Of course there were kids roaming around, and I had to capture what they got up to. These two in particular were adorable along with their v. nice parents who offered me authentic lebanese sweets. yumm. The kids didn't mind the sweets either!
A few more snaps of the men and women at the brides house and we stumbled out and proceeded back to mo's house to do a traditional placing of flowers at the doorway.
After the ritual was done at the groom's house, we proceeded to head into the city to do the photo shoot where we had mixed luck with the rain. Here are some final snaps from the groom's house and i'll cover the rest of the photos in Part 2!
g'nite!
mindy
