Date: May 26, 2012 | Location: Piper’s Heath Golf Club, Milton | Guests: 158 | Budget: $40,000
Thomas Gerrard and Nadine Jahangir met in 2009 at a mutual friend’s cottage in Parry Sound. They hit it off immediately, but Thomas, a 34-year-old engineer, lived in Ottawa, while Nadine, a 30-year-old communications professional, was based in Toronto. After a year of daily long-distance phone dates and weekend road trips, Thomas moved to Toronto and the couple started dating in person. He decided to propose two years later over dinner at home, but just as he was about to pull out the ring, the meal was interrupted by Nadine’s brother Omer, who’d just broken up with his girlfriend. “My romantic dinner for two turned into dinner for three. It was a long night,” Thomas admits. He couldn’t wait for the next perfect moment, so he proposed later that night while Nadine was folding clothes. They chose Piper’s Heath Golf Club in Milton as the venue, holding the ceremony outside and moving to the reception hall for dinner. They were married in a traditional Muslim ceremony, but the imam chose Quran passages that dovetailed with Bible verses for Thomas’s Mennonite family. “It was refreshing to have our two faiths come together so beautifully,” says Nadine.
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