Mehwish and Adnan | A Muslim Wedding

Just wanted to share a few images from a wedding I did last month.  I had never met Mehwish prior to shooting her wedding but had spoken to her several times over the phone and through email.  In these conversations I came to learn a little more about her culture and their traditions.  More specifically, Mehwish was very clear in letting me know that I had to be strategic when posting images from her wedding.  She asked that I refrain from showing pictures with too much hair or neck and of female guests without their hijab (cloth covering the head and hair).  She had been searching for a female photographer for similar reasons and was sooo happy when she found me!  Her wedding reception took place in two separate rooms.  One for the women and one for the men.  In the female reception room, the ladies all removed their hijab.  For this reason, the men could not celebrate with them since only the husband of a woman may see her without a head covering.  I could tell several of her guests were nervous about having a photographer in the room and would often look away or cover up not knowing where those images might turn up.  Some even came up to me and politely asked if I could refrain from having them in any pictures.  But no need to worry ladies!  All those fun candid pictures of you beautiful ladies will remain private.  Mehwish, thanks for helping me select the images for this post.  

So anyways, all this talk raised my curiosity and I did some research of my own to understand the culture a little bit better.  The following were some reasons I found...and very good, noble reasons I thought :).   

Men would not judge the woman by her appearance but would tend to evaluate her by her personality, character, and morals. 

When wearing a hijab, one feels more modest, having more self respect and confidence.

People actually evaluate the one wearing the hijab based on who she is and not on how beautiful she is.

Hijab provides Muslims with an identity. They don't have to tell people they are Muslims. It shows. 

By wearing hijab, the woman is concealing her sexuality but allowing her femininity to shine.

That being said, although Mehwish was very well covered when I first met her, she was very beautiful!!!  It didn't take very long for me to see that her beauty also resonated from within.  Mehwish was very polite, sweet, caring and smart.  Not to mention, her love for photography made her more beautiful in my sight ;).  Anywho, it was obvious to me at the reception that her family and friends love her very much.  Her friends and mentors gave great speeches, made slide shows and videos all in celebration of Mehwish's marriage.  Adnan is a very lucky guy!  Congrats you two!!