Some weddings are more exotic than others but can anything beat a Muslim Wedding in Africa? Yes this was just what I was flying to Africa for in the winter of 2009. I was hired for a good one week too, the wedding promising to be an experience of a lifetime. But Africa has something that exceeds your expectations. And this marriage in Dar es Salaam, which was a strange confluence of Indian Muslim culture and Arabic religious attitudes, certainly did.

In the 12 hours flight...
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Some weddings are more exotic than others but can anything beat a Muslim Wedding in Africa? Yes this was just what I was flying to Africa for in the winter of 2009. I was hired for a good one week too, the wedding promising to be an experience of a lifetime. But Africa has something that exceeds your expectations. And this marriage in Dar es Salaam, which was a strange confluence of Indian Muslim culture and Arabic religious attitudes, certainly did.

In the 12 hours flight from Delhi to Mumbai and on board the Kenya Airways to Nairobi and finally Dar es Salaam, I tried to conjure for perhaps the first time the people of Africa . Africa did not bring up images of its people for me.

I had not even met the bride's sister yet. She had seen my wedding photography on the internet and had contacted me tentatively on e-mail. After a few phone calls back and forth on a very unreliable phone line, she confirmed the booking. Within a month I was ready to leave. But it was on the flight somewhere over Africa that I began to ask myself who were these people calling me all the way from India to shoot a wedding in Africa. I was sure Africa had its share of wedding photojournalists.

However when I finally met the family in Dar es Salaam, I was comforted. They were a genial 5th generation Indians settled in Tanzania. They were traditional Muslims but very cosmopolitan in their ways, most of them having studied in the West. All the girls in the family had the classical middle-eastern good looks. The Groom's family was settled in Canada but hailed from Zanzibar. They however traced their origins from India too. The groom flew in from Canada and the wedding guests arrived from all around the world for the weeklong wedding extravaganza which was more Arabian Nights than I had imagined.

( For religious and cultural reasons I cannot upload any other photographs from the wedding than those already visible)
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