And we’re back with another highlights video! We’re just recovering from Ayesha and Aaquib’s three day wedding over a span of five crazy, fun filled, well planned, awesomely executed wedding in Toronto this weekend. We shared this next-day-edit at the third and final valima day and the excitement on everybody’s faces could not be bought. Enjoy!

Today we’d like to share a wedding highlights video from our recent wedding in New York featuring Naema and Nasheed. N and N decided to exchange little but meaningful gifts just before the wedding. Naema went penny searching looking for the exact dates, while Nasheed impressed Naema by remembering from their first conversation that she likes vampire frogs. Do we need say more?

Special shout out to our New York crew Emma, Neil and Randy who helped us capture the wedding along with our lead photographer and videographer Mehreen and Asad. Here is to New York!

Today we are writing a blog entry that has absolutely nothing to do with photos or videos or even weddings. But it has everything to do with humanity, perseverance, hope, the audacity to dream and the courage to realize it.

Today we are writing about Maria Toor Pakay. Maria was a girl born amongst brothers and a sister to a loving father in Waziristan. As her interest developed in sports, knowing she won’t be allowed to openly participate in any sports, her father cut her hair short and passed her as a boy allowing her to take part in games and sports playing and often beating boys her age. Her interest finally settled for the game of squash as her family moved from Waziristan to Peshawar to get away from the hostility. Within the year, she was the top ranked female professional squash player in Pakistan.

Then one day, her father found a note on his windshield asking him to go for Tabligh and a stern warning to stop his daughter from playing squash. Amongst growing security concerns, Maria stopped going to the squash courts, but kept practicing in her room. Seeing her determination and love for the sport, her father suggested that she better get out of Pakistan if she wants to achieve anything in the sport or even just play. For the next three years she would email all over the world including clubs, sponsors, individuals, looking for anyone to extend a helping hand.

A hand finally extended and it belonged to Canadian former squash world champion Jonathon Power. Power, started playing the professional circuit ironically just as the legendary Jansher Khan was towards the end of his career. Power would reach world number 1, before finally retiring in 2006. During the course of his career, Power would become to be known as The Magician for his extremely deceptive style of playing. Before Power graced the sport, squash used to be the ultimate sport of the fittest with long rallies played at blindingly fast pace – a trademark of the Khan duo particularly Jahangir. Power not only rose to the top of the squash pyramid, but also changed the very nature of the sport as long, fast and strenuous rallies would be replaced by even faster ones filled with deception and trickery – or magic (see at 0:18). The sport would become to be referred as chess on legs.

Having retired from squash, Power turned his attention to promoting the sport as well as becoming more involved in social and philanthropy efforts. He founded National Squash Academy in Toronto as well as started a program to help twenty troubled youth every year and training them in the game of squash.

When he received Maria’s email, he knew exactly what to do. Seven months later, in December of 2011, Maria landed at the Toronto airport shaking as she came out of the terminal, not sure of what to expect, half expecting her luck to expire any minute. Her luck, however, was just beginning to favor her. As her unsure eyes scanned the foreign faces in the cold airport, she spotted the former world champion sporting a warm smile who walked over, said hello, grabbed her bag and put it over his shoulder. On the way from the airport, in the car Jonathon asked Maria if she would stay in Canada until she became world champion. Her currenty world ranking hovered somewhere around 170. She simply replied, “Insha’Allah”!

Before the year was up, Maria’s world ranking would reach 44. She is far from done!

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To find more about Maria’s amazing story and to witness her rise to the top visit http://Mariatoorpakai.org. We also encourage you to support Maria by joining her facebook page, following her on twitter and by using the link on the bottom of this page http://Mariatoorpakai.org/support-maria/.

Happy new year everyone! Been a while since we posted on the blog. 2012 turned out to be an uber busy crazy year with weddings pretty much till the countdown. We have tons of work to upload on our blog/fb to share with all of you. For now, here is a highlights video for a wedding we recently shot.

Sairah and Muhammad met in Dubai and flew back to Sairah’s hometown Toronto to share their special day and the festivities with family and friends. Enjoy!

One fine lonely day Samina was talking to a friend of hers saying how hard it is to meet someone outside of your friends circle and everyone you know is, well, you know them. On another fine lonely day, Nadeem was talking to a friend of his saying how hard it is to meet someone outside of everyone you know, and everyone you know, well, you know them. Light bulb moment! The friend, who was both the same, introduced Samina and Nadeem. Nadeem, after not responding to Samina’s message for a month (not deliberately he claims), contacted Samina and asked her out on a date. Errr … to Tim Horton’s!

Fast forward to their Tim Horton’s meets Famous Players meets Arcade meets awkward moments a plenty, and we have Samina and Nadeem’s hillariously original engagement shoot. We will be shooting their wedding in Montreal later this year. Enjoy!