Today I bring you the walima for Rizwan & Farheen. Rizwan had gotten a hold of my information through my friend Seema, and the rest was history. I was expecting this walima to be just like any other walima I covered before. However, to my surprise, there was a special event that even the bride & groom were unaware of. Rizwan is a huge Michael Jackson fan. Man has good taste, because I too am a huge Michael Jackson fan. His brother managed to track down the number one Michael Jackson dance impersonator in the world, Signature, and fly them all the way from UK just for this special event. These are the guys who went on Brittan’s got Talent and made it to the finals. It was a pretty special performance, but rather than talk about, I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Hope you enjoy:
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.
You may remember the E-session of Dev & Jiya from a while back. If not, be sure to check it out here. Very soon after, Dev’s family held a nice little welcome home ceremony for Jiya. It was a great way to introduce the new bride to the groom’s community, but also for her to feel welcomed home. Judging by that wonderful smile on Jiya, I’m pretty sure she was very happy to be there. The day after, Dev had the actual celebration party at the reception. Everything was decked out in Carolina Blue (their Alma mater), and we were ready to get the party started. There was great food, great fun, and lots of dancing involved. Check out the pictures below for the full scoop.
