Multicultural Wedding at Bridgeport Art Center
Today we are excited to share Jasmin and Talib’s multicultural wedding, hosted at the Bridgeport Art Center. We were lucky enough to have this wedding submitted by Jasmin herself so we have a wonderful Q&A with her personal thoughts and experiences. If you like this format, let us know!
How did you feel on your wedding day?
“On our wedding day, Talib, my husband, and I were extremely excited. I couldn't wait to finally marry the person who meant the world to me. My husband and I were both overjoyed and honored to have all of our closest family and friends present and having travelled from all over the world to celebrate this moment with us.”
What was the inspiration for your plans/designs?
“The inspiration behind our wedding design, floral and decor at our wedding was our goal of creating something modern, dreamy and elegant. My husband and I both have similar taste when it comes to design, so it was easy for us to mutually come to an agreement. I love cream colors such as ivory, mauve and blush, which we both decided should be the color scheme for our wedding.
“After viewing so many different venues in Chicago, we knew that Bridgeport Art Center was perfect for us. After viewing it, we could easily see our vision for our wedding flow there, with its design and amount of space. We really wanted to be able to have a smooth transition between the wedding ceremony and reception. Here, we were able to plan our wedding ceremony outdoors, and our reception indoors. The green pines, drapes, chandeliers and brick pavement at this venue further accentuated our goal of an elegant wedding. We had chandeliers and drapes installed into the indoor and outdoor portion of the venue.”
“During the planning process, my husband had one main request- to have our frenchie, Bane, present at our wedding. Although he wasn't allowed at the reception (per the rules of the venue), he was present for our first reveal just before our guests arrived, and our amazing photographer, Daniela, was able to capture that special moment.”
We see there are some cultural ceremonies - explain to our readers the significance of those.
“Our wedding ceremony was called a Katbe Khitab- an Islamic union of husband and wife. The same Sheikh that wed my mother and father was present to wed Talib and I, which we were so happy and grateful for. We also made it a point to use the same cake knife and spatula my mother and father used at their wedding.”
“We reached out to Art of Imagination to help us with our vision of the wedding design, and Deborah was tremendously helpful. She helped us bring our vision to life with gorgeous chandeliers and drapery. Maria at Northern Greenhouses was our florist who made our floral dreams come to life! Everything was so beautifully done and the flowers were absolutely gorgeous. We reached out to Stunning and Brilliant Events for month of and day of planning/ coordination and they were extremely helpful!”
“I am Mexican and Egyptian, while my husband is Iraqi. We knew the importance of incorporating both of our cultures into our wedding as much as possible.
Our dessert table consisted of wedding dress and ring shaped cookies, pink and gold cake pops, churros, small bombolinis from our favorite Chicago shop, Bombobar, and chocoflan from my favorite bakery, Kristoffer's Cakes.
Talib and I knew that we wanted a wedding that was special to us but also very entertaining to our amazing guests. We had a mariachi band perform during cocktail hour and drummers performing for our grand entrance for our second look. We also had two amazing belly dancers perform before dinner. We had a small performance by our awesome DJ, DJ Raad, who is also a Tamboura player. He did a really great job in all music related aspects of our wedding. We also transformed our ceremony area to a hookah lounge for our guests to enjoy during reception.
We were so happy to see that, as we hoped, all of our performers really pepped the crowd!”
We love your outfit changes - tell us about why you both chose what you chose!
“Talib's first look consisted of a mauve blazer, white undershirt, black pants and black dress shoes. He chose this outfit because he believed his outfit would be unique and that it would go well with our elegant theme for our ceremony.
“As for the ceremony dress for my first look, my mother in law purchased it for me while she was in Jordan. She also provided all of the ceremony table items for our Katbe Khitab.
“For our second look, Talib changed into an Armani Tuxedo with black dress shoes. I changed into my wedding dress that my mother purchased for me at Jade Bridal. We both thought this outfit change for the second look would be beautiful and classic.'“
“I would also like to mention that we planned all of this in a span of two months! With Covid making things so unpredictable, we wanted to make sure we had a wedding during a time where things were getting somewhat better in terms of regulations, etc and before anything else changed. We received help from both sides of our family and all of our close friends, and we are immensely grateful! Our wedding was the wedding of our dreams!”
Jamin and Talib, thank you SO much for sharing your amazing wedding day with us. We could not be happier about sharing this real wedding with our community!
Wedding Pro’s:
Photographer: Daniela Cardili Photography
Venue: Bridgeport Art Center VenueLogic
Month/Day of Wedding Planning: Stunning and Brilliant Events
Catering: Catered by Design
Wedding cake: Urban Icing
Videography: Our Wedding Movie
Decorator: Art of Imagination
Florist: Northern Greenhouses
DJ: DJ Raad
Furniture for Wedding Ceremony: Chicago Vintage Weddings
Mariachi: Los Viajeros
Belly Dancers: Safire Belly Dancers of Chicago
Bride's wedding dress: Jade Bridal
Groom's tuxedo: Armani
Groom's watch: Rolex
Hookahs: Habibi Hookah Delivery
Dessert Table Cookies: Urban Icing
Dessert table Bombolinis: Bombobar
Dessert table Chocoflan: Kristoffer's Cakes
Dessert table Churros: Catered by Design
Passed hors d'oeuvres and dinner for wedding: Kabobi Grill