Rubina & Rizwaan’s Romantic Vintage Muslim Wedding {Toronto, Canada}

Oh boy oh boy! We have a super special wedding for you today.

Straylight Studio emailed us with this beautiful wedding from Toronto, Canada. And gosh, I am so in love with this bride, her color scheme, and smiles captured, it was impossible to pick and choose photos.

So, let’s start with the interview with bride Rubina and mix in some beautiful photos!

Tell us about the wedding!
The summer daytime wedding took place in the beautiful gardens of the Parkwood Estate just east of Toronto. A Muslim wedding – we decided to integrate religious, cultural and western elements of a wedding. The Nikah ceremony was followed by a tented lunch reception in another area of the gardens.

At the end of the lunch, was the Ruhksuti or the departure of the bride; where symbolically, the bride is given away to the groom and his family.

Were there any special customs in your wedding?
The Baahrat (Groom and family) arrived led by a Dohl player. The bride’s family met the groom and his family with flower garlands.

Just before the officiant began the Nikkah, my mother in-law to be adorned my head with a duppata (a chiffon shawl) and placed bangles on my wrists – a symbol of being a bride. No rings were exchanged since we did that at the engagement. Instead, the officiant gave an eloquent sermon on the meaning of marriage and love followed by a brief prayer and signing of the marriage certificate.

Did you have a vision/theme for the wedding? How were you inspired?
Inspired by the garden and love – I wanted pieces of whimsy and beauty. We provided a hand held fan to each guest. It doubled as the wedding program and on the reverse, had a crossword about the couple to entertain guests while they waited for the ceremony to begin.

Instead of a traditional wedding book for guests to sign we opted for puzzle pieces. Each guest was asked to sign a puzzle piece and when put together reveals an image of the pier where my husband proposed to me.

A color palette of coral, ivory and aqua was used throughout. It including everything from the parasols provided to the guests, to the table runners, and the center pieces. The garden was brought into the tent with long rectangular grass center pieces packaged with lovely satin coral ribbons and speckled with flowers.

Our gift to the guests was a petite ivory antiqued terracotta pot with small basil plant along with note that said “in our garden love grows”. Birds were also central to the garden theme – a bird cage took the place of the envelope box, hand crochet birds created by my sister acted as the cake topper, and ceramic birds and bird houses were used throughout as decoration.

We also had snow cones and cotton candy since it’s something we love and makes everyone happy.

What was the hardest about planning the wedding?
Logistics of getting everything set up, when we had limited access to the venue before the event.

What was your favorite part of the wedding?
The actual ceremony – it was beautiful.

What one piece of advice would you give future brides-to-be?
Delegate in advance and speak to each person about what it is that they are to do and have a wedding coordinator who is invested in making the event go smoothly. Try not to delegate too much to your immediate family so that they can enjoy the day too!

Photographs are courtesy of Straylight Photo Studio in Toronto, Canada.