“Their chemistry was amazing”: Dubai photographer on Zohran Mamdani and Rama Duwaji’s intimate wedding ceremony

Dubai: “The connection between them was amazing,” says celebrity wedding photographer Anas Jarrah, recalling the rare chemistry he witnessed between Zohran Mamdani and Rama Duwaji at their 2024 Dubai rooftop wedding.

It’s exactly the kind of chemistry that made Gulf News track Jarrah down in Düsseldorf for an exclusive chat about the photos that have now gone viral worldwide.

Despite the political storm swirling around the couple today, Jarrah remembers only one thing: how unmistakably and disarmingly in love they were. He didn’t need to coax, pose, or choreograph anything.

“The chemistry was there… their energy was speaking ahead of everything,” he tells me — and it shows in every frame.

There are some couples whose love doesn’t just show up in photographs — it lights up the frame.

When Jarrah trained his lens on their intimate Dubai wedding, he knew instantly that this wasn’t going to be one of those weddings where chemistry had to be manufactured.

“It was just like lighting the place,” he says. “The connection between them was amazing… between Rama and Zoran, it was different kind of chemistry. You know, it was just like lighting the place and the way they deal with each other. It's hardly to catch it with other couples.”

For a man who shoots hundreds of weddings a year — in Dubai, Beirut, Germany, India, Italy, France, Turkey, Lebanon, Qatar, and beyond — that statement carries weight. And coming from someone who has photographed presidents’ families, global VIPs, and the elite who often insist on airtight NDAs, it becomes clear: this wasn’t just another booking. This was the kind of couple a photographer remembers.

A love story that didn’t need direction

That natural ease between Zoran and Rama wasn’t lost on Jarrah, whose style relies entirely on capturing real emotions rather than forcing them.

“I believe in chemistry between couples,” he says. “I don't like to pose couples… I say, ‘Hey, be together. Forget about me.’ At some point, if I feel that you need guidance, I'll guide you. But just be together. Love her, kiss her, be with her, talk together, show us how much you love each other. And then I'm gonna capture that in my own style.”

With Zoran and Rama, he barely had to intervene.

“They knew what they wanted. They knew what they're looking for, and actually their energy was speaking ahead of everything.”

Their wedding — a beautiful, intimate dinner with vintage touches blended with modern photography — became one of Jarrah’s most viral sets, reaching nearly 20 million views. The response was so intense, he eventually had to freeze further posts because, as he puts it, “it was too much politics coming inside. And I'm out of this.”

But the frenzy made sense. At a time when politics is polarising, here was a couple whose love felt grounded, modern, and refreshingly reachable. Their interfaith romance began on Hinge and unfolded privately, until that one Dubai evening when Jarrah captured them exactly as the world hoped they were — real.

Why Zoran and Rama’s wedding mattered

For Jarrah, the Mamdani–Duwaji wedding didn’t just go viral — it reaffirmed something.

“I want to encourage people to be in love and get married,” he says. “Nowadays parties are different story… but this, their energy wasn’t made up. It was built in.”

And perhaps that is what makes these images so powerful. They reflect love in its purest form — unposed, unfiltered, and unpoliticised, despite the very public lives the couple lead.

“They were driven by their own energy… the purest sense of it. It was really beautiful between them.”

In a world where weddings can feel scripted, commercial, and engineered for Instagram, Jarrah captured something rare: two people who were simply, sincerely, overwhelmingly in love.

And sometimes — that’s all a great love story needs.