Editorial: The Wedding of Farima & Andy Ferguson

A Persian Wedding in the South:

The Wedding of Farima & Andy Ferguson

Written by Farima Ferguson Photos by Jennie Andrews Photography

After two years of dating, Andy asked me to marry him in 2019 when we were visiting our favorite vineyard in Hillsborough, Va. The view was amazing, with the beautiful rolling green hills and sunny blue sky. I knew I wanted my wedding venue to have the same view, but I wanted to celebrate our wedding where most of our family and friends live. Burritt on the Mountain was the perfect choice since Huntsville is my hometown, and the view was exactly what we pictured for our wedding.

We set our wedding for May 2020, but like many other 2020 brides, that didn’t happen. We postponed our wedding a couple times before we were finally able to celebrate with our family and friends in July of 2021. It all worked out because it turned out to be an unusually cool, sunny day for July in Alabama.

Persian Infusion Since I am first generation Persian-American, my husband and I wanted to incorporate Persian cultural traditions in our ceremony and reception. During a Persian ceremony, the couple displays a table spread, called a sofreh, that symbolizes their love and future together. Each item on the sofreh has a special meaning. For example, the couple feeds each other honey to bring sweetness to their lives together. Another tradition we incorporated was asking close female family members and friends to come up during the ceremony and rub sugar cones together on a cloth held up over our heads to add sweetness to our lives together. At the end of the ceremony, a close friend walked the aisle with wild rue to bring us prosperity and luck before my husband and I walked out. We printed out programs that explained the aspects of a Persian ceremony, along with a watercolor drawing my cousin did of the sofreh explaining the significance of each item, so any guests who weren’t familiar with the traditions could follow along with our ceremony.

Once cocktail hour and dinner were finished, it was time for the traditional Persian cake cutting. In Persian weddings, the cake cutting is its own special event. The couple usually asks a few female family members or close friends to dance with a knife before giving it to the couple to cut the cake, but there’s a catch. The family members won’t give the knife unless the groom pays them for it. Each person goes back and forth with the groom a couple times before passing it on to the next person. Eventually, the groom gets the knife and all the guests cheer. To add a surprise for our guests, our groomsmen decided to get in on the fun and dance with the knife before giving it to the groom.

We spent the rest of our night dancing the night away with our family and friends, but my favorite part of our wedding was incorporating these Persian elements with a traditional American wedding because it was the perfect way to share our love for one another and to blend two cultures coming together into one household. n

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