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Muslim . Kozhikode, Kerala . January 2025
Fathima Basheer and Irfan Koya
A Mappila wedding on the Malabar coast, where the Walima is the bigger day and everybody knows it.
- Venue
- The family mosque and a courtyard hall
- Where
- Kozhikode, Kerala, India
- When
- January 2025
- Guests
- about 800
- Coverage
- Two days. Mehndi, Nikaah, Walima.
- Collection
- The Full Saga
Frames from the day
Mehndi at her house, the older women singing oppana in the next room, the door left half open.
The Nikaah at the mosque. The Mehr named in front of witnesses and the whole thing done in under ten minutes.
Her wali and Irfan, hand in hand over the contract, while the rest of us waited in the corridor.
Walima the next afternoon for eight hundred people. Biryani in the courtyard and a queue that never once got shorter.
Her brothers walked her out at the end, and the sea was two streets away doing what it always does.