We’d like to start our anniversary series with Salwa & Ahmed, who got married on April 5, 2009 and had their reception at the Valley Regency in New Jersey. We knew quite a few people at the event since we had photographed the weddings of many of Salwa’s friends! This is one of our favorite wedding photos of Salwa. She was just about to get into her limo and we caught her in our side view mirror.
Doesn’t Salwa look so happy here?  She and Ahmed are about to start their Zaffa. Many of you reading this are probably saying “a what?” A Zaffa is an Egyptian wedding march led by performers in colorful garb with tambourines and other instruments. That’s part of the fun of our job - we get to see how different cultures and religions celebrate marriage. We’ve found that wedding celebrations across different cultures have a lot in common. It must be because love is universal AND we all like to party.
  
Here’s Ahmed at the Zaffa with his wedding party. You can see some of the performers with tambourines in the background.
Hmm…since most of them are kneeling, you can’t really see the groomsmen very well. What is that we hear? You want to see their handsome faces more clearly? Voila!
This is another fantastic Egyptian wedding custom- dancing with swords. As you can see, Ahmed and his brother are very good at this.
In February, we called Ahmed and told him about a great anniversary gift idea we had for them. Salwa loved the slide show we had put together of their wedding day highlights. We asked Ahmed to say a few words and then, we added his voice and message to the slide show and sent it to them for their anniversary. Our intuition paid off because Salwa loved it! In Salwa’s words, “I looove everything!!…Thank you so much for being a part of the most amazing day of our lives- I really feel like we’re family and am a little sad we don’t have any more work to do together.”
To see the slide show we created, click on the image below.