Reverie HQ recently has been so busy of late, gallivanting around the world to Paris, California and… Somerset! We love traveling, but we also love super sweet couples – and this couple is one of the sweetest ever! Not only do they have a beautiful story to share with us today, but they also have two canine companions and gorgeous photos from Ashton Jean-Pierre. Their story is just so sweet that we had to share it directly from the bride herself…


I’m marrying Khaled Kassem, although all his friends call him Kass. Kass and I met when I was just 17 years old and he was 21 (I’m now 32 and he’s 36). He is a very good friend of my brother and they were at univeristy together in Leeds. From the moment I saw him, I had a huge crush on him…


… I proceeded to travel around Indonesia for 3 months because he had been there, as well as take every opportunity to try while under the guise of pretending to be wanting to visit my brother…  Over the years we stayed in touch and Kass actually married another lady. Their marriage didn’t work out and they separated 4 years ago. Kass and I were still just friends at this point, but he was incredibly sweet and supportive to me during a very difficult time of my life… I was diagnosed with a brain tumour and so had to have an awake craniotomy. Kass came to a charity event that I put on when I shaved my head for the operation and although he wasn’t one of the 11 friends of mine who did shave  their heads (because he doesn’t have much hair as you can see!) he was there giving heaps of support. 
 
Anyway, 6 months later I broke up with my then boyfriend and Kass jumped on the opportunity. He invited me out for ’a dog walk’, as we both had dogs (Gaia is mine and Kane is Kass’s – although Kass had a previous dog at this time – its a long sad story but unfortunately his previous dog ‘Storm’ died about a year and a half ago) and then one thing led to another and we realised that we were perfect for each other. 

Our dogs are: Gaia (Hungarian Vizsla – the orange one!) and Kane (Blegian Shepherd or Groenendale to be precise). 


So I suppose you could say that it took our love of dogs, and our lovely dogs, to bring us together after all those years - the dogs are such an important part of our lives that we knew we couldn’thave the engagement shoot without them. 
 


Kass proposed on one of my favourite beaches on Friday 5 August 2011, just over one year of our being together. The beach is near Brixham in Devon and close to our hearts as I have spent a lot of time in Devon with Gaia (my brother has a flat in Totnes). We were there for the weekend and he surprised me with the most lovely sapphire and diamond ring. He then whisked me off for a night at Gidleigh Park Hotel where I was spoilt rotten. 
 

In relation to the shoot, we wanted somewhere where we could take the dogs but also somewhere where we wouldn’t feel too out of place dressed up. We also live in London so it had to be relatively central. Ashton chose Green Park and it was perfect. 
 


We chose Ashton as our photographer because he had photographed my sister in law’s, sister’s wedding and we loved the photographs. As Kass is a photographer, it was always going to be hard to find someone that could live up to the job, but when Kass saw Ashton’s photos, he knew he was the photographer for us. Also, as Ashton shoots on film, we knew that his photographs were going to be special and truly individual. 
 



I wore a Karen Millen dress. I had tried to find an orange outfit to match Gaia, but its amazing how difficult it is to find that tone of rust in a dress! So… i opted for straightforward red. My necklace was a christmas present from my brother and is a scandinavian horse. I’m 1/2 danish; it’s one of my favourite pieces of jewellery as it reminds me of the horses i used to play with when i was little. Kass wore a bespoke suit made by Gresham Blake – he loves it as he feels so comfortable in it. Otherwise, we have matching rolex watches which Ashton pikced up on – mine was a gift from Kass – and its the watch that he wore when he was 10 years old. 

We are getting married on 8 September 2012 in Herefordshire. We are having a country rustic type wedding with a blessing in the church, followed by the usual party of a lifetime afterwards… its going to be mainly outdoors so please keep your fingers crossed it won’t rain!
 

We’ve certainly got all our fingers and toes crossed for beautiful weather on the September 8th!! We just LOVED Tabitha & Khaled’s story! And as huge dog lovers at Reverie, we also love their gorgeous dogs!

{Photography by Ashton Jean-Pierre}