Shirin and Reza flew in from Canada to marry on the Costa del Sol, and chose Anantara Villa Padierna in Marbella: a Tuscan-inspired hotel of pink façades, columns and cypress gardens, as fine a setting as a wedding could ask for. Both are of Iranian heritage, and theirs was a Persian wedding, from the ceremony to the music.
That morning I did the hair for six women: Shirin, her mother and her four bridesmaids, moving from one hairstyle to the next as the room filled with dresses, family and music.
The music, in fact, set the tone for the whole morning. Iranian songs played from start to finish, and between one hairstyle and the next there was dancing, laughter and a joy that never faded. The girls were in high spirits, and Shirin lived every song with a happiness that lit up her face long before she put on her dress.
The wedding was planned by Tucco Weddings, whose weddings tend to bring together a great many suppliers, all at the top of their field. Carla, its CEO, once said something I will always remember and now keep as a reference in my own work: a wedding is like a sauce, where every ingredient has its own job and only together do they become the sauce. The comparison is no accident, since the company's name comes from tuco, an Argentinian sauce. That is what a wedding is to me, the sum of what everyone brings, and at this one you could feel it everywhere.
Much of what you saw was the floral styling of Studio8 Events, who designed the look of the entire wedding, and their work is the kind that stops you the moment you walk in. Everything was white: white flowers all along the ceremony aisle, in large arrangements on stone pedestals, and beneath the crystal chandeliers hung in front of the hotel's façade. Even the sofreh aghd, the traditional table at the heart of a Persian wedding ceremony, with its silver candelabra, its sweets and its embroidered cloth, was dressed in the same flowers, so the couple's tradition and the wedding's design spoke the same language.
Many more were at work around them: production by Arte Puro Eventos, the cake by Marta Pino Postres, stationery by Papelosophie, photography by Eloy and Alex and the film by Reece Ives On Videography. Each added their own ingredient, and the result was a spectacular wedding.
The photographs show everything the Anantara has to offer: Shirin and Reza among columns, fountains and stone staircases, the bride's veil sweeping down the steps. The film captures the rest of the day, bridesmaids included, and the party that was already brewing that morning carried on into the night.
What stays with me is that morning: six women dancing to Iranian music between one hairstyle and the next, and a bride who was already celebrating before her wedding had even begun.
