Legally Married in Dubai!

I tried to capture everything I possibly could on Instagram while I was in Dubai, but one thing I didn’t show? Our wedding. Mostly because it was almost a surprise.

Wafiq & I got legally married while we were in Dubai. We knew we wanted to do this even before getting engaged. We don’t go back to Dubai often & we didn’t want to wait (what could be years) to make it official in that region so we reverse engineered our engagement & wedding planning. Getting married legally in both the Middle East & The United States was always important to make sure we’re technically husband & wife no matter where we are.

You may recall, we canceled what I thought was a wedding in Dubai. In the midst of planning, we dropped it because of the pressure & how out of control we felt as we were beginning the process, very much not our vibe. We did however still want to go through with the legal process because ultimately that’s all that mattered to us. And that’s what I thought was going to happen. I call this entire trip: “the trip of blindsides”. I had been asking what the “legal” process looked like for MONTHS & (i-swear-hes-my-best-friend) Wafiq kept saying it was small, at the house, & easy, with just family. The “judge” comes to the house with paperwork to seal the deal – I was thinking this is right up my ally! At the house? Could it get any better?! In his defense, I think he honestly thought that was the extent of it.

Dubai Wedding — *My maid of honor… Wafiq*

Through a series of twists & turns there was a significantly larger process evolving. One of the “blindsides” was a blood test, which to most people sounds fine, but to me was daunting. (In the Middle East you have to take a blood test to get married. They want to make sure the spouse knows of any red flags – including STD’s & Sickle Cell? Honestly, I tried to know as little as possible about the blood test. Tell me yes or no, IDGAF.) I HATE hospitals & my anxiety is directly linked to anything HEALTH so you can imagine how that went.

The 2 weeks leading up to the marriage were chaotic, which I decided I’m not going to get into details here. Let’s just say Wafiq & I were a hot mess scrambling to meet expectations, I feel like that’s been our vibe through this entire engagement/wedding/married situation we’re in. Discombobulated. In everyone’s defense, I should’ve googled the process or asked more questions before leaving home so I could’ve been more prepared.

Quiet moments where I had a glimpse of our actual reality made me feel comfortable taking it one step at a time, until our legal marriage was completed. {And what turned into a very real wedding, saxophone player, dinner with a table setting, 100+ people & all.}

Let’s talk the main event. It just so happens that Wafiqs sisters are event planners. I helped his sister work events when I lived in Dubai & I’ve always said she handles weddings in a way I don’t think many could. After seeing the pressure, work, & constant flexibility events take to pull off I’ve always thought his sister does better than ANYONE else. Her personality fits the job perfectly & if I ever wanted a true event, she has set the bar so high I don’t think anyone else could match it. Because of this, I trusted the evolved event that was upon us. Wafiq’s sisters took most of the control over this wedding & made me feel at ease the entire night – true angels that I didn’t even need to ask for. (If you ever need to get married in Dubai with a HUGE budget, call me, I got the hook up. HA!)

Dubai Wedding

SO – I’m officially married to Wafiq when we’re in Dubai, with his family & whether we want to admit it or not that’s how to get respect as a partner. And 2 weeks of chaos is better than a few months of it.

One legality down, one to go! At the moment I have no plans as to when or how we’re going to make things official in the United States. Which is both good & bad, I realized not having plans is almost more stressful than making plans – so we’ll see what happens. For now, it’s good to be home & back into a routine! We love the simple life we created & are so happy to be back watching The Bachelor & accidentally attending hot yoga classes.