A Joyful & Colourful, Iranian American Wedding Weekend

Mina and Gage married in June at The Wilburton, a wonderfully characterful historic inn in Manchester, Vermont, where they gathered their family and friends for a whole weekend of celebrations. Their wedding was a colourful, joyful occasion, bringing Mina’s Iranian heritage and Persian wedding traditions together with the couple’s wonderful sense of humour and love of all things playful. These photographs were captured in a beautifully colourful blend of digital and analogue photography by Lory Lyon Photography.

At the heart of the celebrations was a traditional Iranian Sofreh Aghd ceremony, surrounded by family and friends, including loved ones who had travelled from Iran.

Mina wore a beautiful Maggie Sottero wedding dress with a pearl-stitched cathedral veil, while cherry red and pink flowers, pops of chartreuse, cartoon illustrations and silver chrome details brought so much personality to the setting.

Mina shares the story of their wedding with such generosity, warmth and humour, including some incredibly touching reflections on her family and the people who helped make this weekend so special. I’m delighted to share her words and these wonderful photographs with you. Enjoy!

From a venue perspective, The Wilburton in Manchester, Vermont was the perfect venue for us both. With its uniquely gorgeous iron art, and giant statue Egyptian pharaohs on the property (which were lit up by a MASSIVE blazing bonfire on the eve of our wedding!), The Wilburton delivered a playful personality, while still being undeniably beautiful in a historically charming way.

Vermont itself also felt true to Gage, close to nature and the National Parks world he works in, and from the moment we arrived, we were both immediately drawn to the amazing innkeepers and wedding team at The Wilburton. They were like actual magicians, piecing the weekend together behind the scenes!

We also knew from the start that loved ones would be making long trips from Iran and Canada, so finding a place where we could host a large portion of our guests and turn the wedding into a full weekend together was our favourite element.

My uncle, my dad’s brother, walked me down the aisle. This year marks the 20th anniversary of my dad’s death, and for years my uncle had promised that, when the day came, he would walk beside me in his brother’s place. So when that day finally came, having two of my dad’s brothers fly in from Iran to be there with me meant more than I can really put into words.

Ever since my dad died, I had assumed that, if I got married, his absence would cast a certain sadness over the day. I imagined I would feel it most acutely walking down the aisle. Even in imagining that moment, it was impossible to separate what would be there from who would be missing.

Then the day came, and I felt almost the opposite. My dad felt remarkably present, mostly through his family. He was there in my uncle beside me, and in his siblings, who had each found their own way of being there.

One of his sisters baked Iranian desserts and brought them from Florida for our Sofreh Aghd. My other aunts, together with my mom, made a portrait of Khorshid Khanum (“the Persian Sun Lady”) by individually gluing pieces of rice, seeds and herbs into place. My aunt in Iran who couldn’t join us sent me a pair of earrings that had belonged to my grandmother and had eventually been passed down to her. We placed an Iranian-inspired poem on my dad’s empty seat, next to my mom, at the ceremony.

There were these small inheritances and gestures everywhere… I had spent years imagining all the ways my dad would be absent from my wedding and had given much less thought to all the ways he might still be there.

More than anything, I felt an immense gratitude for my two uncles, who had flown from Iran to be there for me. There was something overwhelming about having two of my dad’s brothers there, 20 years after losing him, and knowing how much it had taken for them to make that trip. And the uncle who walked me down the aisle took a moment I had quietly dreaded for much of my life and somehow made it joyful.

Of course, sentimentality can only survive so long at a wedding. Halfway down the aisle, I managed to pop the sleeve off my dress. My uncle and I froze mid-walk while he stared at me, at a total loss about what to do next. He has no daughters, and absolutely no bridal-fashion instincts. We laughed in paralysis until Lolo (our photographer and woman of all trades) swooped in and clipped me back together.

We walked down the aisle to a piano cover of SZA’s Kiss Me More by Chilled Pig, one of the little ways we tried to bring modernity into the more traditional parts of the wedding.

We blended our cultures with an Iranian American ceremony, where we were seated facing our family and friends in front of a traditional Sofreh Aghd ceremonial table. Sofreh Aghd translates to “ceremony spread,” composed of symbolically rich items meant to bless the marriage. Mirrors reflect light and brightness, candles represent clarity and energy, eggs symbolise fertility, honey stands for sweetness, and spices are included to ward off the evil eye. Everything is arranged on a cloth that represents family, abundance, and prosperity.

During the ceremony, as Kasra was explaining these traditions to our guests, Gage and I happened to catch our reflection in the mirror on the Sofreh Aghd. We shared a quiet, silly exchange, a quick surf’s-up hand gesture, a tongue out, a wink. As he continued, Kasra noticed and joked to the room that the mirror is meant to offer us a glimpse into our future and the life we’re building together. That comment stuck with me. It filled me with a sense of excitement that my life with Gage will be shaped by joy, ease, and not taking ourselves too seriously.

In Persian weddings, when it is time to say “I do,” we brides do not say yes the first time we are asked, or even the second. Instead, our closest family and friends are meant to interject, delaying the answer with playful objections before we finally accept on the third ask.

When that moment came, my family and friends did what they do. Someone called out “She’s busy watching Survivor!” Someone else jumped in with a “She’s in the middle of a board game!” It was funny and disarming, and a reminder that even within a centuries-old tradition, my family and friends know me deeply and reflected that back to me on our wedding day.

Another meaningful tradition came when my bridesmaids held a silk cloth over our heads and invited the married women in our lives to come forward one by one to grind sugar cones above us, showering us with the sweetness of their own marriages. Many leaned in with jokes about abundant offspring, and we quickly realised how many of the women in our lives were twins or mothers of twins.

At some point, it began to feel like a coordinated effort, jokingly conspiring and lightly threatening us with twin sugar dust for our future children. It was hilariously jarring, but more importantly, deeply meaningful to share this tradition with so many women who have shaped my life – from former bosses to childhood friends, college roommates, and new in-laws. It was truly special.

I was also completely undone by Gage’s vows. They were deeply meaningful, but what struck me most was how thoughtfully he spoke about my family. They are the centre of me, and seeing that love and gratitude reflected so clearly in his words felt like being seen in the most generous way possible.

One of the most meaningful moments came when my cousin Saum stepped forward to read a poem by my late father’s favourite Iranian poet. The night before, my cousin Ali stayed up late carefully translating the poem into English so the entire audience could understand it. Hearing the poem move between Farsi and English, and feeling my dad’s presence in the front row despite his empty chair, was deeply emotional and grounding. It is a moment I cherish, and I am endlessly grateful to my cousins for making it possible.

Gage and I met at a wedding in September of 2021, where he happened to be officiating. I had worked with both the bride and groom, Lizzie and Pat, back in 2013 at the media agency Mindshare. Gage was Pat’s childhood best friend, and somehow, despite years of overlap and proximity, our paths never crossed during the course of Lizzie and Pat’s relationship!

My first impression of Gage: He had intensely wild, curly hair and an unexpectedly raspy voice, wand he opened his officiant speech with, “Well, what do I know about love, shit?!” It was disarming, charming, and completely unexpected, and it made me laugh immediately. As the ceremony ended and Gage walked down the aisle, I called out, “Nice speech!” and he tossed me a smile.

The wedding carried on, and at the very end of the night, Gage reappeared and kissed me on the cheek mid-Polaroid selfie. I love that our first kiss and first memory together are immortalished on film. From there, we shared a bus ride to the afterparty, and the rest is history!

Gage lived at the Jersey Shore, and I lived in Brooklyn. I had just moved back to the city after spending COVID driving around the country visiting National Parks with my best friends. I worked in Ad Sales in Times Square, and Gage worked for the National Park Service in New Jersey. It felt like an unsustainable crush – we were living in seemingly two different worlds!

But a week after the wedding, Gage made the two-hour trek from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn. I’ll never forget him trotting up the 2 train in Crown Heights, wearing flip flops and a tie-dye backpack, toes out in early New York fall. His enthusiasm for life and shameless confidence were unlike anything I’d been exposed to. I remember thinking he was like Buddy the Elf, joyful and completely unbothered by the sea of moody commuters dressed in black around us (myself included). I was instantly charmed by how untouched he seemed by the world’s seriousness.

On the walk back to my apartment, he casually picked up trash along the way, cleaning up Brooklyn one Popeyes wrapper at a time, which only reinforced my constant internal refrain: who is this guy?

We spent 72 hours together visiting the Brooklyn Museum, Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Chavela’s, Ras, St. Ends, and Cent’Anni. Somewhere in between, I texted my family: “I think I’m in love with that Jersey guy.”

As Gage tells it, they say first impressions matter most and last the longest. When he met me, he knew instantly I was someone special and that I would leave a lasting impression on him. He says I have a natural magnetism that draws people in, and he felt it immediately. He never wanted to leave my side. My smile made his heart melt, and my personality, wit, and humour made everything else fade away, even a room full of 300 people. Looking back, he says, “I realise I was completely taken from the very beginning.”

Gage proposed four years later in Cape May, on the dock outside The Lobster House, during the most UNREAL sunset I’ve ever seen. My family had taken over the upstairs restaurant to celebrate my Ameh Zoreh’s 70th birthday, and Gage and I stepped outside to take in the sky. He proposed there on the dock while my family banged on the windows inside, cheering us on. The sky’s orange glow felt like a moment of recognition, as if my dad was there with us too.

We spent the rest of that night celebrating in Cape May with my family, then slowed everything down over the next few days. Gage and I camped on the beach at Assateague Island, falling asleep to the sound of the ocean and waking up to wild horses wandering the shore.

When we got married the following year, our close friend Lizzie officiated the ceremony. We ordered her a drink using the same “Will you marry us?” coaster that she and Pat had once slid across the bar to Gage alongside a beer five years earlier. Having Lizzie, who had known both of us long before we knew each other, ordain us felt like a true full-circle moment, tying our beginning back to the night Gage and I first met!

For our reception, The Wilburton took care of the catering, with pizza for everyone from the Earth Sky Time Pizza Bus, and our cake was made by Blackbird Cake Design and served alongside Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Our flowers were by Kingsley Floral Co. and our linens came from The Linen Shop.

Our DJ came from Peak Entertainment. We chose “Harvest Moon” by Neil Young. It was a song Gage and I had first danced to together in our living room in Brooklyn, so it felt fitting to return to it at our wedding, this time slightly more formally dressed and in front of everyone we love.

I’ve also always loved that it isn’t really a song about the dizzy beginning of falling in love, but about loving someone after time has passed and still wanting to dance with them. That felt like a particularly nice sentiment to begin a marriage with: the hope that, many harvest moons later, we’ll still find ourselves dancing together in the living room.

It was the best weekend of our lives! What we remember most, though, is the feeling of love that held the entire day together, from McKenna running around to get my vows printed moments before I walked down the aisle, to my sister Negin frantically scrubbing a mysterious red smudge off my dress before the ceremony and my Khaleh Nazila squeezing me into my wedding dress.

There was my Amoos travelling all the way from Iran, which felt incredibly special, my Ameh and mom building the Sofreh Aghd with such care, Gage’s parents generously hosting our rehearsal dinner at The Wilburton and the bonfire that followed, blazing in front of the Egyptian pharaoh statues.

Then came my sister’s heart-squeezing wedding speech, paired with a little childhood roasting, being fully airborne, tossed by a group of clumsy drunk men to the soundtrack of Mr. Brightside, and at the end of the night, people drifting back to their cottages.

Weeks later, Gage and I found ourselves looking at photos and wondering what conversations were unfolding between former strangers who were, somehow, becoming friends.

My first piece of advice? Elope! Just kidding.

Be decisive and stay offline! You’ll be flooded with ideas from other weddings, and if you let trends drive the process, decision paralysis comes fast, and it’s easy to lose sight of what’s true to you as a couple.

Share your culture and parts of yourself! It was such an honour to reveal my Iranian heritage to those who may not be as familiar – and reading our vows at the ceremony was a vulnerable and special way to share our love with our family and friends.

On the day itself, our greatest strength was being completely unbothered by the small stuff. We had all the people we loved together in one beautiful place, and when your cup is overflowing with the love of your partner, friends, and family, very little else matters. Of course things went “wrong.” I had a giant red stain on my dress before I even put it on, my sleeve fell off while I was walking down the aisle, I wrote my vows the morning of, and there was no time to blow-dry my hair. None of it mattered, and I’d genuinely encourage couples to let the small things roll right off their backs.

A dear friend told me to pause and really look around at the people in the room, because it’s one of the only times in your life when everyone from every chapter shows up together to celebrate you. The other time is your funeral, so you might as well enjoy it now. Morbid, but very true.

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