Every once in a while I’m fortunate enough to shoot the vows column for the New York Times. This is an oldie but it’s still one of my favorites, so I’m going to post it here anyways. The backstory on these two is that Rebecca is a matchmaker and Joshua’s sister is a matchmaker and it took the machinations of these two ladies to get this wonderful couple together. I saw a commenter on the NYT website describe this photo as the Jewish Tony n’ Tina’s wedding, awesome.

Sanam and Faisal had a modern muslim wedding in Oyster Bay. It was a first for me in so many ways. Sanam is simply stunning in person, without makeup. In her head-to-toe fully embroidered wedding outfit she was a knockout. Faisal is a very lucky guy, and he kept saying so all night!

Muslim weddings, even simplified ones like this one, have several parts. Firstly Sanam’s father stands in as her proxy and agrees to marry Faisal. Then later Sanam comes out and affirms her father’s words. I’m really not conveying the complexity of the entire ritual here, but in effect her father marries her groom before she does. 

The imam confirms that Sanam does agree to the marriage. Doesn’t she look like a movie star?