Wedding Vows by Nilou

Nilou made my daughter’s wedding the great success that it was. She was a wonderful officiant — warm, intelligent and so professional. She set a beautiful, relaxed tone to the wedding and we received many compliments about her from those in attendance following the wedding, which was on May 15, 2016 in Rancho Palos Verdes, CA.
My daughter discovered Nilou online via PartyBravo, and we were so glad she was available and could travel down to Southern California to conduct the Persian wedding ceremony my daughter wanted. Nilou met with my daughter and her fiancé via FaceTime, and was able to help them with their vows, doing much of the work as they are both busy students. We had great communication throughout the planning stages.
She is very organized and helped put everyone at ease the day of the wedding — myself included!
Nilou is a beautiful, calm and articulate woman who provided the essential core of the ceremony. We were honored to have her officiate the wedding. Thank you, Nilou!

When we found Nilou online, we knew she was a good choice, but didn’t realize until our wedding day that she was an excellent choice. She drafted and made possible a ceremony I could only dream of. She brought humor, personality, tradition, love, kindness, joy and more to our day. People cried through the entirety of the ceremony, and lots of that is due to the poems and format Nilou drafted. One aunt said she was «deeply moved» by our ceremony. Nilou worked closely with my mother-​in-​law and put time, energy and thought into making our ceremony work not just for us, but our families. It was an honor to have her officiate, and for anyone looking to do a Persian ceremony, don’t look any further than Nilou. She’s fantastic!

Nilou did a wonderful job for our wedding in December. We met with her a few months beforehand and she was very friendly, asking us questions about ourselves (how we met, the proposal, etc) which was really helpful in helping us feel really comfortable with her. Once we officially hired her, we worked with her through email to design our ceremony and it came out exactly how we wanted. She gave us some good tips for writing our own vows, and was still able to bring a printed copy to the ceremony even though we only sent them to her the night before. She also helped us pick out and modify rituals to include in our secular ceremony and her words the day of were absolutely beautiful. (As other reviewers have mentioned, she was also very fashionably dressed! We loved it!)
The only negative was a bit of a miscommunication about whether or not she would be at our rehearsal the evening before, but we were able to work everything out and she helped run the rehearsal to make sure our family and bridal party knew what to do. So it turned out great!

Nilou was an incredible wedding officiant. Her professionalism made her very easy to work with and her reliability made my wedding day a worry-​free experience. She put my husband and I at ease and helped us create a very nice ceremony that met all of our criteria. Many of our guests wanted to know how we knew Nilou because of how comfortable we were with her. I would not hesitate to recommend Nilou for any type of wedding.

We got married mid-​December and decided to contract Nilou as our officiant. She responded very quickly to our query and we met over Skype to get introduced and see if Nilou could realize our vision for our ceremony. We were not disappointed! We had a very specific idea about what the flow of our ceremony would be and Nilou was more than helpful in designing the flow with us. She helped us incorporate some regional customs and traditions, and in the end we had a perfect ceremony that included Western as well as Iranian elements. Nilou is super flexible and works WITH you to realize YOUR vision.
On the wedding day, Nilou arrived at the venue on time, went over some last minute details with us, and did NOT disappoint. She looked very professional and conducted the ceremony flawlessly. Our guests (mixed crowd of Iranians & Non-​Iranians) spoke very highly of the ceremony afterwards. Everybody was kept engaged as Nilou conducted parts of the ceremony in English and other parts in Farsi.
Her fees are a little bit on the higher side, but Nilou is worth every penny!

Nilou was a fantastic officiant; an absolute star. She personalized our ceremony to be inclusive of all of our respective cultures, while secular enough to not offend anyone. She dressed beautifully to match our wedding style, and the photos came out perfect. Thank you Nilou for being a wonderful storyteller and poetic wordsmith at our wedding. We are so pleased in how different and unique our ceremony was. Two months later, we are still hearing compliments!

Just amazing! Couldn’t have asked for a better officiant! Miss Nilou is very professional and passionate in what she does. Her multicultural skills are amazing as well! Thank you so much for customizing our ceremony!

What do you do when you decide 72 hours prior to your holiday vacation that you want to have an elopement? Call Nilou. My husband and I found her information online and emailed her straight away. She quickly responded with all the information we required for an elopement in San Francisco. She was very happy to answer all the questions we had concerning a quick ceremony at San Francisco City Hall. Due to not having a witness, her cousin was nice enough to come to the ceremony and serve as our witness. We met them at city hall and they guided us through a smooth and wonderful ceremony. Can’t say how grateful we are for Nilou and her services!

We got married a few weeks ago in San Francisco’s City Hall. Nilou made a perfect ceremony for us. She guided us through the process of structuring the ceremony and was able to give us exactly what we wanted although we came to her with very little time to spare.
She was very attentive, punctual, and super professional. She was also so fashionably dressed that our guests keep bringing up how chic she looked. I hope to look as amazing as she did! We are so glad we had her officiate our wedding, could not recommend her more.

Dear Nilou
Thank you so much for conducting an incredibly beautiful ceremony! It truly meant a lot to us that you officiated our daughter’s wedding. You took the time to get to know them and as a result the ceremony was touching, heartfelt and simply perfect. We will always remember the kind words you said and how comfortable you made them feel on a day when they were already excited and anxious. It was a fantastic event with an even more special ceremony. We can’t thank you enough.

I recently got married in central Illinois in a mixed Persian/​American wedding and though Nilou did not actually officiate my wedding, she helped us make our ceremony special by re-​writing our script. She was so gracious in sharing her talent and her time with us and truly made our ceremony unique and so incredibly memorable. We got so many compliments because no one expected it, especially here in central Illinois. For most of our guests, this was the first introduction to our rich culture and they left in awe.
Everyone commented on how beautiful the ceremony was. How nicely she had weaved in bits of Persian history and culture into what otherwise was a stock script. Nilou truly made our ceremony special and personalized and we couldn’t be more thankful. She’s super talented and a joy to work with. Her professionalism and responsiveness is top-​notch. I couldn’t recommend her more!

My family is American. We recently hosted the wedding of our son to a young Persian woman, whose family observes and practices traditional Persian customs. While I was all in favor of embracing a cross cultural event, I did not want anybody on either side to feel uncomfortable or offended. We wanted somebody who could speak Farsi and English, could communicate the rich traditions of the Persian wedding, and could perform the Western ceremony … all in a spiritual, nondenominational manner. Mission accomplished!
The kids found Nilou through reviews, so I know how important this is. Upon our first meeting with Nilou, we knew she was the perfect fit. Cultured, knowledgeable, thoughtful, funny, happy … not to mention, beautiful. All this came through in our ceremony. Nilou customized a lovely ceremony that spoke to both cultures in a very meaningful way. She even coordinated her attire with the bridal party! Both sides (including my {very} Catholic family) could not say enough nice things about our ceremony. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Nilou did a wonderful job with our wedding and we highly recommend her. My wife and I could not be happier with how she handled our persian ceremony. We had both persian and american guests and Nilou did an amazing job keeping everyone engaged and translating where necessary. Her selection of persian poems were perfect and we loved the humor and laughter she brought. Nilou is very professional and great at what she does. She took time to meet with my wife and I prior to the wedding on multiple occasions to learn more about us and to tailor a ceremony perfect for us. All of our guests can’t stop complementing how much they liked our ceremony and Nilou. I’m sure she will be getting some family referrals from us.

Nilou was recommended to us by a friend, and we are SO glad that we went with her recommendation!
We were hoping for a Persian ceremony that was short and simple, led by someone who could speak eloquently in Farsi and English. Nilou guided us through details that never occurred to us and created a ceremony that met and exceeded the criteria we had set — it was sweet, personal, and perfect.
She also went the extra mile, literally, to meet with us the day after our wedding and sign our marriage license (because of course I forgot it at the hotel on the day-​of)!
I couldn’t recommend her more!

I got married in July in New York City and really wanted to choose an officiant who could conduct a ceremony that would beautifully mesh both my Iranian and American roots in a ceremony that would be moving for all of my multicultural guests and also be appreciated by my African husband and his family, and all of our American friends.
So I googled persian wedding officiant and stumbled on to Party Bravo — a website that has numerous persian wedding vendors. There were several options. I scrolled through the list of available persian officiants, and having not recognized any of them at any weddings or knowing anything about their experience, I stumbled on Nilou’s profile far at the very very bottom of that list. Ok, let me be very frank now. I am sorry for this next comment because I really hate to come across as superficial but I also want to be honest about what led me to inquire with her first from this list… she was absolutely the most beautiful and graceful and was sporting a most splendid hat! Furthermore, somehow through that picture, I could sense a really warm and loving personality about her. I knew I had to reach out to her first and know more about her!!!
And so next we met by Skype. She showed the utmost professionalism. From being on-​time to our virtual meeting to the minute, to being prepared with a series of questions about me, my now husband, our story, our beliefs, what we want to achieve out of our ceremony, our wedding colors and details, you name it. She had every detail covered down to the T in our very first meeting.
Being the perfectionist I am, I knew immediately I wanted her and appreciated her diligence and attention to detail, and most of all her warm personality which I knew would attract my guests.
From there, we had several more meetings, including one with my now husband, another with my mother, and several more with me, fine tuning the details and really writing a script that beautifully blended our cultures, with a nice mix of English and Farsi, beautiful persian poetry, a beautiful explanation of the different components of the persian sofreh spread. She also shared a lovely flyer with me of the persian ceremony spread and it’s meaning that was stunning and I was able to customize it and print it for my guests. Nilou flew to NYC a day early and we were able to rehearse with her the day before our ceremony and I just knew everything was going to be lovely!
And so the wedding day came, and there she was, as beautiful and kind as ever, with a dress that even matched my persian ceremony spread. I mean really the pattern of her dress was the same as the cloth for my spread (see photos I have posted on Unilocal) and several of our guests asked us if we had made her dress for her! I told them I had not and she just must have a collection of gorgeous dresses to match every theme and color imaginable.
Besides her beautiful presence, the ceremony was even more lovely. Oh how I loved it so! Our non-​persian guests were so intrigued by the sofreh and her explanation of the components. They all thought the ceremony was beautiful! And she taught me things I did not even know about our culture and the history of the persian ceremony and some of the intended meanings. And so I will always especially remember Nilou every time I see images/​videos of sweet grandmother who came up to sew the cloth above our heads and Nilou gently and sweetly explained at that time our sweet grandmother was sewing our destinies together, dispelling other more negative meanings I had heard of this tradition. How sweet that was! The sewing of our destinies! How lovely! And who better to do it than my grandmother who has been happily married for over 60 years! Oh what a wonderful memory that will always be for me and how glad I was that Nilou explained this to me so I can have my sweet grandmother be a part of such a beautiful and unforgettable moment.
This was our day that I just tried to capture a glimpse of in these few words.
But what is so wonderful about Nilou is she will make it YOUR day. She will inquire with you about your partner’s beliefs, read about your culture (just as she did about my husband’s Ghanian culture!) and do whatever research necessary to achieve your vision for your ceremony. After seeing the tireless work she put into our wedding day, her fees are really negligible compared to the amount of time and effort she puts in to make sure your ceremony is beautiful and everything you had envisioned and more.

My husband and I had the honor of having Nilou officiate our wedding ceremony in Miami, Florida this May. This is the second wedding she has officiate for our family as she also married my husband’s sister last August. Immediately following that ceremony, we knew that we wanted to have her marry us. We couldn’t recommend her more highly.
Nilou’s calming presence, general kindness, responsiveness, and preparedness were so welcome during our wedding preparations. My husband and I are not Persian. Nilou took the time to learn about our backgrounds and families and crafted a truly personal and touching ceremony. Every reading she chose reflected our views on love and commitment. She was kind enough to recite poetry in French and Arabic and included authors that were culturally significant to our families, Khalil Gibran, Rumi, Proust.
Nilou was beautiful on the day of the wedding! She made a point to research the venue and inquire about our wedding colors so that she could coordinate her outfit. Her class and poise immediately drew our guest’s attention when she walked down the aisle and they stayed engaged throughout the ceremony — this is evident from our pictures.
The best compliment we received afterwards was how representative the ceremony was of us as a couple. We are thankful that Nilou created such a special experience for us, our families, and friends. We couldn’t have asked for kinder blessings or a sweeter start to our married life.
You would be very wise to work with Nilou, we can’t recommend her more highly!

Wow. That one word sums up our experience with Nilou. Upon meeting Nilou, we knew we wanted her to do our wedding. She took time to get to know us and she really wanted to understand our relationship. This was reflected in our ceremony. It was perfect. It’s hard to put into words just how special and precious she made that moment feel. She really delivered a one of a kind experience. Anyone who is thinking about using her for a wedding, we can tell you with confidence she will do the same for you.

Ms. Nilou is AMAZING. I must admit my first inclination was to have my Father marry us. After some thought we decided to use Nilou’s services and I must say we made a GREAT choice.
I strongly recommend Nilou as your Wedding Officiant. Do not search any further as she is the most unique and elegant officiant I have ever seen.
ALL of our guests raved about our ceremony and said how wonderful she was.
Nilou made us feel special by sharing stories from when she met us and her impression of the two of us which was very nice and warm.
She tailored the ceremony to our liking and was able to speak in both Farsi and English and therefore not boring for our guests.
Nilou also dressed in our theme color and looked classy and professional.
Thank you Nilou for making our day extra special with your presence and officiating our marriage!

Hello everyone. DJ Aykut here. I’ve been in the business for many many years and worked at hundreds of different weddings. Nilou is simply one of the BEST ! She is super organized, professional and true pleasure to work with. She brings her enthusiasm, skill, and kindness to the process. So refreshing!
Best,
Aykut of

Nilou you are a GEM!
Nilou’s attention to detail and personal touch by getting to know both my husband to be and myself resulted in a breath taking ceremony. She spoke, English, then translated in Fasi and even spoke a bit of Arabic to capture the hearts of all our family and friends. Our guests were so touched and in AWH of such beautiful ceremony. Having an unforgettable ceremony so heartfelt and romantic would have never been possible without Nilou.
Professional, classy, and beautiful inside and out. She is now a friend I will continue to keep in touch with and HIGHLY recommend her. Nilou THANK YOU for everything! It was a pleasure to have you as a guest and our efficient.
Cheers,
Marjan