Noreen + AJ — You complete my world. You make it bright.

Noreen (Nunu) and AJ share one of the truest loves that we’ve ever had the plea­sure of being privy to. Even as this film came togeth­er, we found our­selves smil­ing and aww-ing at the small moments and ges­tures that make this love so great. It’s sim­ple: to be in Nunu and AJ’s pres­ence is to be in the pres­ence of com­plete com­fort and happiness.

That sim­plic­i­ty trans­lat­ed per­fect­ly to their wed­ding day. It wasn’t a show or big pro­duc­tion. There was no big reveal. In fact, the first thing we did was meet the cou­ple ear­ly in the morn­ing for their gift exchange. After that, they left to have a pri­vate break­fast at the Four Sea­sons before chang­ing and head­ing to the cer­e­mo­ny togeth­er. It was the first time we had seen any­thing like it, and it took a lit­tle get­ting used to see­ing the bride and groom in the same place so ear­ly in the day, but it was com­plete­ly nor­mal to Nunu and AJ. For them, it was less about the cus­toms, and more about cel­e­brat­ing their love through togeth­er­ness: theirs and with their family.

Light became a recur­ring theme that guides the nar­ra­tive and helps con­nect dif­fer­ent seg­ments of this sto­ry. Noreen wrote AJ a beau­ti­ful poem in which she tells him that his’ “is the soul with the most spe­cial light”. Light as a spir­i­tu­al force comes up again dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny as the Mukhi refers to the light that fills and reflects onto every cor­ner of the Ismaili Cen­tre in Toron­to, allow­ing us to tran­si­tion (through light in the most lit­er­al form) to their beau­ti­ful recep­tion at the Fer­ment­ing Cel­lar, adorned from top to bot­tom with can­dle arrangements.

We real­ly don’t need to say any more than that because we would just be spoil­ing the film. Take five min­utes to wit­ness this beau­ti­ful sto­ry for yourself.