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In a traditional Persian wedding, the bride and groom exchange honey instead of rings—dipping their little fingers into a jar, and then feeding one another. The act is symbolic of a life full of sweetness, a concept I often returned to when planning my own wedding earlier this year. I hoped the day would celebrate not only the child-like sweetness of falling in love but the thrill of being alive—and the hope that springs forth when the two collide.
My August wedding was not only a marriage of individuals but of cultures. I was raised in a loud, loving Middle Eastern household; my fiancé grew up in the hustle and bustle of London. To amalgamate our two upbringings and create a singular wedding experience for all, I focused on that one word: sweetness. For there is nothing more wholesome, more pure, than two people from different worlds overcoming the odds to be together, opening their homes and hearts to each other.
We chose to get married in Lisbon, Portugal because post-Iranian revolution, my family moved all across the diaspora, while my fiancé’s is mainly in England. We hoped to choose a location that felt convenient and accessible to all. Additionally, Lisbon was the very first place that my fiancé and I traveled together, almost eight years ago. We both fell in love with the vibrancy of the city—the salt, the sweat, the explosions of color and noise. The spirit of Lisbon is emblematic of us as a couple and the surrounding landscape of the city is vast and diverse: The mountainous fairytale of Sintra, the sun-soaked vineyards of Setubal, and the breath-taking beaches of Lisboa proper. We wanted our guests to experience it all, to take them on a journey that mimicked the feeling of falling in love.
Of course, we wouldn’t have thrown a Persian-English hybrid wedding without a little chaos (core to both cultures). So here, let me take you behind the scenes of my wedding week, day-by-day: the highs, the lows—and yes, the sweetness.
Monday
My fiancé and I arrived in Lisbon, promptly collected my maid-of-honor, my little sister Ava Hariri-Kia, and sat down for a traditional Portuguese lunch. Once we were a bottle of white wine deep, we received news of a family emergency back in Iran, which required about 10 of our family members to travel back home ASAP. Very chill way to start a wedding week.
I immediately contacted my planner, Sofia Nascimento Studios, because we had carefully concocted one 200-meter-long table to seat all of our guests. Ten people meant an entirely different seating arrangement, so we had to get to work. Luckily, this wasn’t our first rodeo: We had to make adjustments in the previous weeks after many family members were denied visas. Such is first-gen life!
Tuesday
To host the most famous wedding in the world, I had to pause promoting my sophomore novel, The Most Famous Girl in the World, which hit shelves on September 17. I spent the morning working on press releases, then turned in a round of revisions on my third novel to my editor, before putting up my OOO away message for the next three weeks.
My publisher and I had also brainstormed ways in which we could incorporate bookish elements into the wedding, and they had the brilliant idea of giving away The Most Famous Wedding in the World matchbooks. But a week before I left for Lisbon, my planner alerted me to the (very obvious in hindsight) fact that it is, actually, illegal to travel internationally with 200 matchbooks in your luggage. So, I hunkered down on my couch, turned on House of Dragon, and proceeded to empty thousands of matches into a reusable shopping bag. I swear to God, my neighbors must think I was trying to set Fort Greene on fire.
That meant Tuesday called for manually refilling every. Single. Matchbook. With fresh matches. Luckily, my stationary artist, Inês from Prettie Wedding Design, was there to lend a helping hand.
Wednesday
Thanks to Persian Standard Time, my parents arrived fashionably late on Wednesday, which meant it was time to sit down and mock up our sofreyé aghd table. This ceremonial table holds several symbolic items including a mirror representing eternity and candlesticks, a reference to a fire burning passion, and a nod to Zoroastrianism. Other items on the aghd table? Gold coins represent future prosperity, lots of fruit, a reminder of a joyous and fruitful life together, spices for the spice of life, flowers symbolizing beauty, and a book of poetry, from which the official will often read.
This was Sofia’s first Persian wedding, but my mother, Gisue Hariri, is an architect (also very type A), so she went above and beyond when designing the table, with silver from Iran, fresh fruit, wildflowers, and beautiful hand-painted Portuguese vases. A perfectly woven tapestry of three different cultures.
Thursday
Our bridal party boarded a shuttle bound 30 minutes south to Setubal, a small fisherman’s town outside of Lisbon, for our rehearsal. The wedding was to be held in a vineyard called Herdade Do Peru, and we had a lot of ground to cover. Mainly, how we would transition from our contemporary Western ceremony—which included an officiant speech, a bible reading, our own vows, and traditional ring exchanges—to our modern take on a Persian Ceremony, a.k.a. the aghd.
There are a lot of components of the aghd that are unique and tend to confuse outsiders. When the officiant—in this case, my Baba—asks the bride if she will take this man to be her husband, she must refuse to answer twice before saying yes. The goal of this practice is to make guests, and the groom, a bit nervous by making them wait. There’s audience participation, too: A guest might yell out, “The bride is in the garden picking flowers,” and other frivolous excuses. When she does eventually say yes, guests celebrate by kelling, which is a loud clicking of the tongue that sounds like lee-lee-lee. (Semi-terrifying to the virgin ear.) All of these moving pieces can shock guests who are more used to quiet, orderly ceremonies, so we needed to run through the aghd once or twice and get it right.
That evening, my fiancé and I hosted a party for all of our guests who arrived early at SEM Lisboa, a rooftop bar with 360 views of Lisbon’s waterfront.
Friday
This time around, guests headed 30 minutes north to Sintra, a mountainous region outside of Lisbon, where our rehearsal dinner was held in the ballroom of an old manor called Casa Dos Penedos. I wore a custom dress designed by my friend Conner Ives, with shell detailing that made me feel like a siren, and my glam artist, Cati, gave me mermaid-like slick-straight hair to match. Conner and I grew up together (he was literally my date to sweet sixteens), so wearing his design was a true full-circle moment.
Our rehearsal dinner was a fairy tale: The tables were overflowing with candles, shell-adorned glasses, and local fruit. My fiancé’s childhood friend Oliver Callipideo performed opera. My bridesmaids Willa Bennett and Melanie Mignucci dramatically tore up their speech and free-styled on the spot. After dinner, we opened up the manor to the outdoor “secret” garden, where we greeted guests for our fairy-lit welcome party.
Saturday
Saturday morning, my fiancé and I leisurely drank coffee together, then went our separate ways to get ready. My bridal look was inspired by old Persian tapestries and miniatures from the Qajar period, which, as I previously wrote about for Vogue, transformed my relationship to my own beauty and self-worth. I paired a golden headpiece, a family heirloom that belonged to my maternal grandmother, and turquoise earrings, both my “something blue” and a symbol of Persian strength, belonging to my paternal grandmother, with a gown and veil from Danielle Frankel. Ancient whimsy, with a contemporary twist.
Hours later, my fiancé (now husband!) and I were married under the blazing Portugal sun. The ceremony went by in a blur: A dog jumped up onto the altar during our vow exchange, guests sang along to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” while we transitioned in between ceremonies, and my fiancé had to fan me underneath my veil as my aunties were grinding sugar and threading the tapestry above our heads. Luckily, my photographer Dias De Vino Y Rosas and videographer Full Cut captured all the little moments I missed, and every single small detail was soaked in sweetness.
After our sunset cocktail hour, guests walked through the gardens toward the vineyard proper, where they were greeted by an explosion of color, texture, and pattern nestled between the trees. Our table featured a pink and red striped tablecloth (one long piece of fabric!), ceramics by local artisans, and wildflowers from the surrounding area. The best part? The dinner menus were modeled after the structure of a book, complete with a Table of Contents and courses broken into chapters.
After a round of the most delicious espresso martinis on the planet, courtesy of Mad Kitchen, Matthew and I danced the night away under disco balls and stars to a Persian DJ and band hybrid courtesy of Alex Amir. As I changed into a Sandy Liang mini dress and cherry earrings, my family helped teach all our Western guests classic Persian dance moves, like ‘the lightbulb.” I joined the band on the stage to serenade my fiancé with “Like A Prayer” by Madonna and my sister and I shared a special dance to Abba’s “Chiquitita,” while guests threw rose petals at our feet.
Then it was time for my favorite Persian wedding tradition of all time: the knife dance. Before we cut our cake, each of my bridesmaids performed a short, somewhat seductive dance with the cake knife. They all gave it their all, my friend Simone Rivera even going as far as doing a stabbing move that was very Most Famous Girl coded. Then other guests performed the dance one-by-one, in an attempt to tease us. We could tell our American and English guests were loving it and several even gave it a whirl. Eventually, we got our knife back and used it to cut our fresh strawberry shortcake from Edeweiss—my childhood favorite—and danced until four in the morning.
Sunday
Lisbon is famous for its beautiful beaches, so what better way to close out the week than with an epic goodbye party at the Praia Princesa Beach Club? The day started out slowly (everyone was hungover… a sign of a good party), but I donned my custom “The Most Famous Bride in the World” beach tote—I couldn’t help myself—and put my best foot forward. We swam in the ocean and sat down for a big Portuguese luncheon of freshly caught fish and spritzes. One of our wedding guests, Ariel Matluck of Anchor Walk, was handcrafting necklaces for guests out of shells they were picking on the beach. Another, Jo Malone, set up a scent experience station, where she designed custom scent journeys for the remaining guests. She debuted a cherry blossom and rose water scent for me, symbolizing who I was before, and who I am becoming now, as a married woman. The perfume was spot-on: Rose is a traditional scent of old Persia, and I write a coming-of-age newsletter called Cherry Picked.
As guests’ sluggishness subsided, the DJ began spinning Chappell Roan and Charli XCX. I sang so loudly that I completely lost my voice and danced so hard that I accidentally split my lip. But it was all worth it: As the sun set over the ocean, and our guests shimmied and shouted, I got the sense that life had never been so sweet.