It’s my birthday today, yay!  So it’s only appropriate that I take some time and share a post with you guys, right?  Cool.  Today, I bring you some photos from one of my closest friends’ Walima, Dr. Akef Rahman.  Now as most of you know, I don’t do weddings for friends anymore.  There are multitude of reasoning behind this, but mainly, I just want to attend a friend’s wedding as a guest and partake in all the shenanigans instead of work.  However, Akef was very persistent and would not have it any other way.  Even if I didn’t shoot the wedding, he wanted me to cover his walima.  After all, it was going to represent his home turf, so he wanted it done right.  I’ve known Akef for about 8 years now.  He is an intelligent individual, competitive basketball player, a Chelsea fanatic, rice enthusiast, and most importantly, a loyal friend.  He’s also one of the biggest Batman fans I know, and still may secretly believe that he’s Bruce Wayne.  Akef is an all around good person, and a great friend, so much so, that I endured a 36 hour round trip road trip to Kansas for his actual wedding.  I wasn’t the official photographer there, but I did manage to get a few pics of the awesomeness.  The Walima was held at the North Raleigh Hilton.  Our plan was to shoot a few photos outdoors, but our original location didn’t phase out, and we had to quickly locate another area.  I’m glad this happened because I think the new area looks much cooler anyway.  We shot some photos outdoors, had some cake, heard some speeches, laughed at some jokes, you know, the whole shebang.  Without further ado, I present you the photos from Akef & Sadia’s Walima:

This is one of my favorite shots

Akef’s Mom made this cake herself from scratch.  Very impressive!

One of my favorite moments

“Arey, Vhaat a sweet husband”

It’s Akef, so of course we had to do a Jump shot!  Not bad for one take 😀

Congrats again Akef!

Special shout out to Feraz & Asra, my very first wedding clients 😀

If you couldn’t tell, Feraz is Akef’s older brother.  It’s awesome to see an entire family emerge from your past clients!

Bonus!

Here are a few bonus shots from the wedding in Kansas City. I wasn’t trying to be an Uncle Bob, so I only took a handful of shots.

He’s on a horse

The 3 Brothers

We decorated the car with a Batman theme, and I got them a Batman & Catwoman mask.  Now tell me that’s not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?  I dare ya.

Naannanana nannananana……