Koh Kood Wedding // Shantaa Resort Thailand

a lebanese armenian wedding in thailand

Updated September 13, 2021

Below, Anna tells her and Saed’s love story that led to their Koh Kood wedding in Thailand!

“Saed and I met while working as expats in the Middle East. We come from different religious and ethnic backgrounds. I’m Armenian born in the US, and raised in Syria and Germany. Saed is Lebanese raised in Abu Dhabi and Canada. We spent our first date booking flights to Sri Lanka, and on our third date we were planning our trip to Burning Man.

We realized immediately that we were die-hard, hopeless romantics at heart. We fell in love while making our way around the world together, off the beaten path. Two years later, on a road trip from the region of Twente in Holland to the province of Lucca in Italy, Saed proposed in the municipality of Zweissiman. Our parents were strongly opposed to interfaith marriages, so it was tough in the beginning, but there was nothing that could get in the way of us having a union that represents US and OUR values and OUR ideas.

Six months later, with no wedding plans, we discovered Koh Kood while island hopping in South East Asia. We were so awestruck by the serenity and innocence of the island that we instantly started planning our biggest trip. Fast forward a year, we returned to Koh Kood; this time we made the journey with our families and 50 of our closest friends who made it from all corners of the world. We even brought my mother’s wedding dress with us which had made its way from a bridal store in Germany in 1984, to her wedding in Aleppo, back to her attic in Hamburg, before flying via LA to New York and then via Doha to Hanoi, Bangkok and finally Koh Kood! Saed likes to say that our love is a celebration. Truth is, love is love; it is a celebration of everything that is good in the world. And every human being should be able to love whomever they want and marry whomever they want, no matter their religion, race or gender.”