A Persian Affair

• By Stephanie Horst

Azadeh Jamalian & Ala Alavi

The Park
September 4, 2011

During a 2004 visit to Vancouver, Ala Alavi was in the passenger seat of a friend’s car when Azadeh Jamalian drove up beside them. The two exchanged smiles through the car windows, and an instant connection was made. As it turned out, they had a mutual friend. They also both grew up in Iran and moved to Vancouver as teenagers. A two-year long-distance relationship unfolded (Ala, in school in Texas; Azadeh, in Vancouver), before the pair settled together in New York in 2008. Ala, now 32 and an architect, proposed two years later in a Vancouver hotel room. “He brought out the ring, I said ‘yes,’ and we drank a whole bottle of Champagne in five minutes,” says Azadeh, 29, a Ph.D. student. The couple wed at The Park in Chelsea, where they had a traditional Persian ceremony featuring a spread of symbolic items like rose water, a mirror (to reflect brightness and light into the couple’s life), and pomegranates. “The first time Ala asked me out, he sent me a lovely poem by a Persian poet about pomegranates being the symbol of love and beauty,” she says. A raucous dance party continued until 2 a.m. “I just wanted everyone to dance and be as happy as I am.”