Abbas & Kiran's Wedding | Occasions Event Hall, Spring Hall, DoubleTree Augusta | Atlanta Pakistani Muslim Wedding Photographer

This blog post is definitely late, but it’s not my fault for once, I swear! After Sunday’s wedding (which was awesome of course) concluded, I called the dreaded automated line and sure enough… the other groups were exempt but not my group from JURY DUTY! To add insult to injury, after finally being called, it took our pool of 45 jurors until 5:00 PM to make their decisions on who would serve or not, and when the decision came (at 4:55 PM), I was chosen as one of the lucky/unlucky to serve on the actual jury… which meant yet another hour of sitting and listening to the beginning of the case. Seriously the least amount of fun I’ve ever had in 10 hours on Monday and again on Tuesday so far. So we’ll see how this week pans out and what we are going to do with Miles on Wednesday when Betty needs to be presenting her paper at a conference. Either Betty is speaking with Miles, or 18 month old Miles is coming to court with me because the judge would not offer me any alternative when I told her honor about our situation… No offense to any brides and/or grooms with judicial aspirations, just very frustrating with an 18-month old at home causing trouble! Sorry for the rant, on to the late wedding blog post!

I was primarily shooting the wedding video for their three day Muslim wedding celebration, but of course grabbed a number of still images here and there to use for things like the DVD case and menus… and the blog =). The first day’s events, the Mehndi, took place in Atlanta at Occasions Event Hall (technically in Tucker but right off I-285).

And here is the next day edit of the trailer for videography, already featured a few weeks back on the sneak peek:

The mehndi day is a lot of fun as you can tell from the video with dancing and celebration, it’s sort of a reverse from a Western wedding where the dancing comes at the end of the night after the ceremony. The second day of a Muslim wedding is the main ceremony day, the Baraat (or Shaadi), with events such as the ring exchange and cake cutting, a larger formal affair with many guests in attendance. The day started with Kiran getting her makeup ready…

Kiran’s wedding dress

After Kiran finished up her make up, I headed over to Abbas’ uncle’s house for another ceremony whose name escapes me! I guess I need to brush up on my Urdu and Hindi for all of these South Asian weddings we do =(. The ceremony is when the groom puts on his wedding attire with assistance from his parents, and also gifts are exchanged to honor and acknowledge the assistance of family members.

Ah kids, I can’t help but be captivated by them now that Miles is here =)

From here, we headed to Spring Hall for the formal ceremony to start. Kiran had already made her way here and was putting on the final touches before she made her entrance.

Later on in the ceremony…

Ah, another traditional ceremony on the Baraat day… the stealing of the groom’s shoes, and the negotiations to get them back!

At the end of the night we had discussed some post-wedding portrait photos, mainly to give me a chance to get some formal photos for the DVD case and such! We headed down to the W Hotel in Downtown Atlanta which is actually only a mile or so from where we live, so even though we wrapped up the night at 2am it was only a 5 minute drive home from there =)

Oh, did I mention we got kicked out of the hotel lobby? Not before I grabbed a few more quick photos of the couple who was staying there for their honeymoon night anyways so I’m not sure what the problem was. It’s not like they didn’t know who they were, checking in in their wedding attire is kind of hard to miss…

So since we got kicked out of the hotel lobby we just headed up to their room to take some photos with the swanky decor inside.

Lastly, here it the Baraat next day edit trailer! So yeah, after staying with the couple until 2 am and having to be in Augusta, yes AUGUSTA, the next day for the Walima, I somehow managed to crank out this quick trailer from the footage I shot the previous day! This is even a “Same Day Edit” this time I think, we finished at 2am on Sunday and it was ready for viewing again later on Sunday =)

Now, on to the final event, the Valima! With family also from Augusta, they held their Valima back “home” to celebrate there. The event was held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Augusta.

Lastly, here is their final next day wedding video trailer!

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Wedding Photography & Videography Equipment List (B&H Affiliate Links)

Canon EOS 5D Mark III (x2)
Canon EOS 5D Mark II (x2)
Canon EF 24mm f/1.4L II
Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L
Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II
Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L II
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS
Canon EF 135mm f/2L

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Zachary Long and Betty Feng are destination wedding photographers based in Downtown Atlanta, Georgia. Swing by any time and we’ll grab coffee or drinks down here or wherever you live. Contact us today regarding remaining 2012 available dates and 2013 dates which have already begun filling by visiting our main website at http://www.FengLongPhoto.com/