A Syrian Couple Took Wedding Photos Amid the Ruins of a War-Torn City
Last Friday, newlyweds Nada Merhi, 18, and Hassan Youssef, 27, took a series of striking wedding photos in Homs, a city in Syria ravaged by the ongoing civil war. The bride wore a traditional white wedding gown and the groom, a soldier in Syrian President Bashar Assad's army, wore his uniform as they posed amid rubble and bombed-out buildings.
Homs was once a bustling city with a population of over 600,000, according to the Washington Post. When the rebels opposing Assad took the city in 2011, it became the center for continuous military assault by government forces, sending tens of thousands of citizens fleeing toward the Turkish border and transforming the city into a ghost town.
Joseph Eid, a photographer with Agence France-Presse, said that the couple's photographer, Jafar Meray, told him he wanted the photos "to show that life is stronger than death."
On social media, the reaction to the photos has been largely positive, as users praise the photos for showing that love can flourish even in the midst of war.
"No other way to describe this than devastatingly beautiful,"one Facebook user wrote. "Take 1:00 and look at these pictures. No tidal basin, monument, country club, rolling lush green backgrounds for these wedding pics. They kept it as real as real can be. And they're magnificent."
But others consider it self-indulgent and problematic to romanticize a city where people have suffered so much loss, especially when the groom is part of the army that helped destroy it.
"Awww, so romantic...and just in time for Valentines Day week!" another Facebook user wrote. "The Nazi stormtrooper married his sweetheart in the city he ethnically cleansed."
Scroll down to see the full photo shoot.
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