TAMPA REFUGEE'S DREAM DOUBLE WEDDING

Bestselling author Abbas Nazari and his bride Gen had two special ceremonies to celebrate their cultures

- Jo Bailey

As soon as he caught a glimpse of his stunning bride Gen Maindonald walking towards him down the aisle, Abbas Nazari felt his legs start to shake and his eyes well up.

"It is rare for Afghan men to show emotion, but I had tears throughout the whole ceremony," the refugee and author of bestselling autobiography After The Tampa tells Woman's Day. "Seeing Gen looking so beautiful, with our loved ones gathered on either side, is a memory I'll cherish forever."

Ilex Café in Christchurch's Hagley Park was the elegant venue for the first of two heartfelt celebrations marking the start of Abbas and Gen's life as a married couple. A week after their moving "western" wedding, the couple shared a joyous traditional Afghan ceremony with hundreds of guests.

As Abbas, 28, reflects on his incredible journey from a young boy growing up in the mountains of Afghanistan under the iron grip of the Taliban, to marrying "the love of his life" twice over in New Zealand, he says simply, "Who would have thought?"

In 2001, his parents made the heartbreaking decision to flee persecution in their homeland and begin a perilous journey to find a safer more secure future for their young family. When the fishing boat they were crammed onto with 400 other asylum seekers started to sink off the coast of Australia, they were rescued just in time by the cargo ship Tampa and became one of the few lucky families to be resettled in Aotearoa.