Publications
Partners
How we met
Razeen and I are high-school sweethearts. I met him the very first day at Abbotts College after switching high schools. We quickly became friends and almost 10 years later we finally took the plunge and tied the knot.
How he proposed
As with most typical Muslim Indian weddings, there was no surprise proposal. And being together for so long, I think everyone saw it coming.
It essentially started with him telling his parents that he wanted to get married and then both of our families got together for tea.
Read more: Our top 5 cutest wedding stories of 2017 that gave us serious #weddinggoals
During a Muslim proposal, the groom-to-be and his family ask the bride-to-be and her family if they accept his marriage proposal.
Once everyone is happy, the festivities can begin. We celebrated our engagement with 400 guests at The Westin Hotel in May 2017.
The Wedding
Our wedding took place just five months later on the 21st of October 2017, so we began planning almost immediately.
Our families and friends were incredibly helpful so preparing our big day for just under 700 guests at Islamia Hall turned out to be quite a breeze.
Our Nikkah (the Islamic term for 'the contract of marriage') was held in the morning at Habibia Soofie mosque with our close family and friends to witness. Razeen grew up attending Habibia mosque so he naturally wanted our Nikkah to take place there.
No one could understand why I was such a calm bride. I didn't stress about a thing but there was no need to because everything just somehow seemed to fall into place without any fuss.
I booked the same makeup artist and hair stylist who had done my engagement look because I trusted them so much. I didn’t even need to book trials.
I never really had any specific picture in mind for my wedding day. The only thing I really wanted to be perfect was my dress. It was the one day that I could be as over the top as I wanted to and I never wanted to look back and say I could have done it better.
So I took full advantage of this and went for the custom-made fully beaded lace, princess gown with the matching sparkly shoes and tiara that I always wanted.
We opted to have our location photos taken at Kalk Bay harbour and had 19 flower girls at our reception venue!
We decided against having bridesmaids so all 19 little girls were from both my and Razeen's side of the family. Surprisingly, it was easy to co-ordinate since their mothers ensured they all had the correct dresses.
Razeen and I gifted each of the flower girls with a jewellery set to be worn on the day. The only difficult part of having such a big group comprised of kids? Getting them to be still for a photo!
What I love about Muslim Indian weddings is that it never takes place over just one day. They're basically a week-long festivity. For a few days, our home was filled with family, friends, fun and mostly importantly, food!
As is the case with all celebrations though, everything was over in a blink of an eye. It was an exhausting week but one that left us with memories to last a lifetime.
Our service providers included:
Photographers:
Enagagement: Leandri Geldunhys
Nikkah: Nizaam Amien
Location: Nelani van Zyl
Makeup: ZarBrides (Razana Omar)
Hair: Glam_by_taz (Taskeen Vasgery)
Nikkah dress: Mishah Designerwear
Wedding dress: Me Couture
Ring: Cape Diamonds
Bridal bouquet: Fabulous Flowers
Sign up to W24’s newsletters so you don't miss out on any of our hot stories and giveaways.
