Persian wedding in Dubrovnik | Vivian & Kenan
Who would have ever thought that we would photograph and film a Persian wedding in Dubrovnik! It has been a real dream come true in our career so far. We witnessed a beautiful ceremony taking place in the Mediterranean, but we actually had the feeling that we were somewhere far away in the Middle East. Vivian and Kenan are originally from two different parts of the world, but they met in America, in Philadelphia. They decided to plan their wedding in Dubrovnik, in the region where the groom was born, but with a dose of Persian tradition. For our blog post, the bride has written an interesting and touching story that follows …
“A wedding is a union of two families, and in our case, of two cultures. My now husband was born in the former Yugoslavia – which is now split into several countries including Croatia – and immigrated to the United States as a child during the Bosnian war (after being a refugee in Slovenia and Turkey), and later served in the 82nd Airborne Division of the US Army. I was born in the United States to a Persian family who immigrated from Iran in the 80’s.
In bringing our families together, we decided to get married in the beautiful historic city of Dubrovnik in Croatia, and had a Persian-American ceremony in Sponza Palace in the Old Town of Dubrovnik (which also happens to be where Kings Landing was filmed in HBO’s Game of Thrones). For the Persian ceremony, we had items brought directly from Iran for the traditional wedding “sofreh” (a low table with items that each have specific meaning for a
Persian wedding ceremony).
Following this, our guests took a quick boat ride cocktail hour in the Adriatic sea, and proceeded to our reception venue at Hotel Dubrovnik Palace, Vala Beach Club. This venue is absolutely stunning, and right on the Adriatic Sea with dinner tables set throughout the rocks next to a cliff and looking over the water. Our historic and sea side venues, filled with flowers, mixing traditional Persian culture with American-western
wedding themes, and historic Croatian venues makes our wedding day very special to us.
Dubrovnik is one of the most magical cities we’ve visited and we can’t wait to go back. In planning our dream wedding, we traveled with our parents to Croatia one year prior to our wedding and arranged to meet several wedding planners local to Dubrovnik. With the wedding planners we visited potential wedding venues all over the city – sometimes we visited places twice to get extra pictures and be sure of our decision. I think the most
important thing in choosing a wedding planner is finding someone that you instantly connect with and trust – who will guide you each step of the way through destination wedding planning. Everything else just fell into place accordingly after that – I sent our planner photos for inspiration, and she made our special day into something truly out of a fairy tale.”
Our previous wedding in Dubrovnik
