Back in 2021, Dubai bred Palestinian expat Khalid Alherani was a Civil Engineer graduate with a limited interest in social media. But, as fate would have it, he met his future wife Nora on Instagram and the rest is cyber history.
Nora, who had moved to Dubai from Morocco, was strolling through Khalid’s feed and liked two of his pictures. He immediately sent her a text. “(After that) We spent five days of non-stop texting until he asked me out for a date. Until today he swears he just took me out as a friend but for me it was undeniably a date,” says Nora.
The date was at Dubai Safari Park and they ended up talking for hours. “We didn’t have one awkward moment and we shared all our weirdest and darkest secrets. Until today communication is the thing that we bond over strongly,” says Nora.
A month after they met, Nora who has a Bachelor’s degree in International Business, Innovation and Techniques, pushed Khalid to participate in a viral trend on TikTok. “It was a trend where we had to trick each other into looking in a specific direction. I remember how much he fought me for posting it,” says Nora. But overnight, the video received 1.5 million views and Nora felt that this was their calling.
Together they created a TikTok account which features funny challenges and their adorable couple videos and have garnered a fanbase of 1.3 million followers.
Khalid proposed to Nora on a vacation in Petra on May 28, 2022, which was also her birthday. Just to level the game, Nora proposed to Khalid the following Eid in front of his whole family.
Their fairytale wedding was on February 22, 2023 at the Bab Al Shams Desert Resort where the couple arrived on horses and had festivities rooted in their Lebanese and Moroccan cultures.
Today, though they are mostly into content creating, Nora is also a business coach, author, speaker, and founder of SHE.E.O. Consulting .Khalid works as a personal trainer in mixed martial arts.
The couple keep their romance alive by indulging in activities like scuba diving in the Dubai Mall pool, climbing the highest mountain in the UAE or horse riding. “We talk to each other every night and share the things we learned during the day. We are brutally honest with each other. Spending time completely alone without anyone around us is what we enjoy the most. This is also when we are most at peace,” says Khalid.
They say the best part about being a celebrity couple is that they can fulfil each other’s dreams and show up as a couple everywhere. “I wouldn’t enjoy being a Content Creator without him, attending all these beautiful events alone and being asked for solo pictures or hugs. The fact that we have the full experience together is the biggest advantage,” says Nora.
What miffs them is when people share wrong information and try to sabotage their relationship. But their quick fix solution to that is “Don’t read the comments”. There were instances when people sent them weird messages about each other using fake chats and AI. “This is a crazy world we live in,” says Khalid “But we guard each other’s backs. Her well-being is the most important thing to me and I know it’s the same for her too.”
The couple vouch that open communication and pure honesty can fix anything in a relationship. “We have a magic trick called snitching. Every time we have bad thoughts about the other, we speak it out loud and act as if it is about another person and not us. This helps to not take anything personally but at the same time get what’s bothering you out of your head,” says Khalid
“The advantage of being in this together is that it is easier to keep balance. We suffer, we grow, we shine and we fall equally,’ says Nora.“If we feel that our glam time takes more than our actual love, then we will stop.”
