Diary With Deena | 12.27.19: Our Wedding Day
Hello, lovelies! I hope you’re all well! This blogpost, as you might be able to tell from the title, is about my wedding day! It has been an entire year since then and as I write this, my husband and I are celebrating our 1 year anniversary at a lovely cottage just outside of Montreal.
Just as I did with my henna blogpost, I will only be sharing a few photos that I am comfortable with. I would also greatly appreciate it if you could say mashaAllah as you are reading! Again, it would be of great benefit to you, and it will (inshaAllah) be of benefit to me as well.
Our wedding took place on a very chilly day in December, in Toronto, Ontario. I am ever so grateful that we chose that day for our wedding because the funny thing is, my parents wanted us to wait until March of 2020. However, in early 2019, something in my heart told me I had to choose December. Now that we know what happened in March of 2020, I can’t stop (and won’t ever stop) saying subhanAllah (Glory be to God) and alhamdulilah (Praise be to God).
I had just graduated from university 2 weeks prior, packed up my whole life in Michigan, and leapt into my new life with my husband. It was the scariest and most exciting time in my life so far. Everything happened so fast and half the time I was just trying to remember to breathe. At the end of the day though, everything happened just as it was meant to, alhamdulilah.
Since I was helping plan the wedding from over 200 miles away, I had to forgo my opportunity to be present for a lot of the exciting things that are involved in getting married. For example, I did not get to see the possible apartments we could be living in, I did not get to visit the various banquet halls on our list, I did not do the dinner tasting, or even meet with any of our vendors ahead of time. This made it very difficult for me because I am such a perfectionist, and that makes me a natural worry-wart. If you can hire a wedding planner, I 100% recommend it. I pretty much left everything up to my husband to handle which caused me so much stress at the time, but alhamdulilah, I still got what I wanted and it was a day that I will never forget.
The one thing I had complete control over alhamdulilah, was my wedding dress. I was able to work with the greatest dress designer in Michigan (and possibly the world), Katerina Bocci. She and her daughter, Lela, as well as her seamstress were absolutely the sweetest women I have ever met. They were so generous, so kind and my goodness, so talented. Katerina customized one of her dresses for me, created a matching removable jacket to go underneath and a matching hijab, and even surprised me with the most beautiful cathedral veil. On top of all that, her daughter gave me what I dreamt of since I was a little girl, a stunning tiara. I could not have wished for a better experience in finding a wedding dress. Alhamdulilah times a million. If you are looking for the most beautiful wedding dress, I could not recommend Katerina Bocci enough.
I stayed at a hotel near the venue for a few days leading up to the wedding. I got a large suite so my mom could stay in the room with me and so we would have enough room in there for my hair stylist and makeup artist to come over. This is such a good option if you wear hijab and you can’t find a salon where you can get your hair done in private. My hair was done by Marina Lima and she did an amazing job! I wish I could show you guys! Usually hairstylists use hairspray like there’s no tomorrow which causes my hair to look super stiff, but my hair looked just perfect that day and it didn’t move at all, even under my hijab! My makeup was done by Leena Heravi who was also ahmaaazingggg! My makeup didn’t budge all day; it was absolutely flawless. I was so happy with the results, alhamdulilah!
The morning of was pretty busy, but calm at the same time. It was just my mom and my sister with me which was so fun! We played music and just tried to relax as we got our makeup and hair done. I got into my dress (with my mom’s help) and then the photographers came to get some shots of me without my hijab before we left the hotel. We got our first look moment which was my favorite part of the whole day! It’s such a crazy feeling when you see your spouse for the first time that day. I just kept thinking, “Oh man, this is it! No more time apart,” (insert happy tears). This was especially exciting for us since we had a long distance relationship for almost 2 years!
We took our outside photos at a hotel in Toronto called the Old Mill. It is a boutique hotel and a gorgeous place for photos. It was freezing outside so most of our photos were taken indoors but our outside shots were just lovely!
It was December so it started to get dark pretty early in the day. We quickly headed to the banquet hall so we could get some photos there with our families and then we ran to the bridal suite to wait another hour and a half for people to arrive! We could hear the debka group practicing outside of the bridal suite which only made us more excited for our zaffa. I was probably at my most anxious then, just imagining all the people waiting to see us! When it was time for our entrance, Al Fursan Dabke Group did an amazing job for us. Their zaffa was about 20-30 minutes long and they were so hyped up for the whole thing! Then they gave an awesome performance for all of our guests!
It was really important to me to be involved in the wedding decor, so we actually did most of it ourselves ahead of time! We only hired someone to come and set it all up for us the day of! We bought the favors, the lanterns, the candles, the garlands, etc. I even designed our invitations myself! It was so fun spending time with my husband DIY-ing our wedding. It made it that much more special to us.
It was also such a good way to keep the budget small so we could spend the money we saved on things that were more important to us. At the end of the day, a wedding is just a big party, nothing more! It’s hard to believe that before the wedding, but once it’s over, you’re just happy you get to go home and start your new life. The important thing is getting together with the people you love to celebrate spending the rest of your life with that one special person. No need to spend your entire life savings on it! So many people spend most of their money on fresh flowers (which are so expensive!), instead, we decided to spend the money on our venue (which included an amazing dinner and dessert), my dress, and our honeymoon. My sister in-law even made our wedding cake and it was not only gorgeous, but so delicious! It was so nice to have personal touches everywhere we looked.
I am so grateful that my sister in-law made my dream rustic-style wedding cake for us.
Our favors were so special to me. We bought these fillable lightbulbs, filled each one with Zamzam water (water that comes from a holy site in Mecca) and attached tags that read part of verse 24:35 from the Holy Qur’an, “…Light upon light. Allah guides to His light whomever He wills…” as well as a message to our guests thanking them for celebrating with us and asking them to remember us in their prayers as they drank the water.
It truly was a day to remember. When I was a little girl, I used to dream about the perfect wedding, did I get what I used to imagine? Of course not. But was it still my dream wedding? YES. This is what was written for me by Allah (swt) and that’s all that matters. The joy we experienced that day was unlike any other. May you all experience such joy inshaAllah, especially in these dark times.
I hope you all enjoyed this little throwback post! Thank you so much for reading. Please keep us in your prayers!
