The Bride Wore a Lace Gown With Beads Borrowed From Her Mother’s Wedding Dress for Her San Miguel de Allende Nuptials

Razak Roohani and José “Pepe” Garcia met in Cartagena, Colombia over the Fourth of July weekend. Razak was traveling with a group of girlfriends, while José was attending a bachelor party. Their two groups ran into each other at La Jugada, a bar in the walled city. Over cocktails, they felt a spark. Soon, their chance encounter blossomed into a relationship.

Three years later in March 2022, the couple went to Condado for a wedding. It was the perfect excuse for José, who is Puerto Rican, to bring Razak to a place that holds a deep meaning for him. The two booked an extended ten-day stay on the island—and, one day at dusk, José asked Razak to take a sunset walk on the beach with him. When he got on one knee, Razak says she fell into a state of happy shock: “I think I remember only a sentence of the beautiful things he said that evening,” she said. “I always wanted the proposal to be just the two of us, very simple and real."

A year later, the two held their wedding in San Miguel de Allende, planned by Easton Events. The couple chose the UNESCO World Heritage site as it was a central meeting place between San Juan and Las Vegas, where their families are respectively from. They immediately fell in love with the Rosewood while researching venues: “From the lush gardens, to the view of the iconic Parroquia cathedral from many areas of the hotel, to the culture embraced by the staff, we knew we had our venue,” Razak says. “We leaned into the fairytale element provided by the castle-like architecture of the Parroquia.”

The weekend began with welcome drinks in the garden of the Live Aqua resort. A mariachi band greeted their guests as they milled around the stunning outdoor setting, which Easton Events had adorned with canary yellow blooms to match Razak’s Giambattista Valli gown.

On Saturday, they wed in the Rosewood’s garden. Razak’s family friend, Nanaz Hatami, crafted her a custom dress made of multiple Valentino laces as well as beads from her late mother’s wedding gown. “I wanted something no one else could buy,” says Razak. She paired it with Pasquale Bruni earrings that resembled butterflies—another nod to her mom, who had a love of Lepidoptera.

Her father walked her down the aisle to “Such Great Heights” by Postal Service. José, wearing a Giorgio Armani dinner jacket, waited for her under a flower arch of ethereal pastel blooms. San Miguel’s famous cathedral, La Parroquia, stood majestically in the background.

The couple’s close friend, Alejandro Suarez, officiated. “Alejandro fully understood how important it was for José and me to embody a celebration of unity: in our cultures, Puerto Rican and Iranian; our religions, Catholic, Bahai, and Muslim; and our parents’ traditions,” Razak explains. Their ceremony culminated in a Sofreh ritual, where the couple visited a table filled with symbolic items that paid homage to Razak’s Iranian heritage.

Despite standing in front of 200 people, the bride didn’t feel any nerves—just joy. “As I stood there at José’s side, I couldn’t help but smile,” she says. “A sense of calm washed over me I hadn’t ever anticipated feeling in that moment.”