This bride wore not one, but two Oscar de la Renta gowns for her Swedish-Persian wedding in London

Tara Kangarlou’s wedding celebrations was much like her journalism career to date: a culturally rich series of moments filled with heart and soul, and of course, fabulous fashion.

“From the very start, Joel and I wanted to make sure that we weren’t just throwing a fabulous party,” says Kangarlou. “My entire aim in planning this meticulously detailed, and fashion-filled wedding was to celebrate diversity, cultural inclusion, and the many beautiful values that bind us to one another as human beings despite our unique heritage, countries of birth and roots,” she says.

Iranian American Kangarlou first met her Swedish investment banker boyfriend at a gallery opening in Chelsea, Manhattan, in 2016. It was a perfectly spontaneous New York evening: Kangarlou was working for Al Jazeera America at the time, while Mossberg had recently moved from London to New York for business. That balmy evening with a chance encounter led to six years of globetrotting and a magical, ‘I do’ moment in May 2022.

Their careers (and courtship) have taken them all around the world. In 2018, Mossberg relocated to Stockholm for work which led to Kangarlou bidding New York farewell too. She moved to London to be closer to Europe, Mossberg and to see where their blossoming romance would take them next (spoiler: love wins the day).

In March 2020, the couple were bedridden in Stockholm with Covid where they remained for six months. In late May, as life outdoors started to slowly resume, Mossberg purchased a 'casual' ring and organised proposal 1.0 over lunch at Stockholm's Ett Hem, their favourite hotel.

“There was no kneeling on one knee, but instead a promise of a lifetime of love, compassion, and adventure, and that there will be a more colourful proposal post-pandemic,” says Kangarlou, who was initially aiming for an August 2021 wedding, but plans hit pause when the world entered the second lockdown. In July 2021, Mossberg arranged proposal 2.0.

“[The proposal] was at our favourite hotel in Venice, the Belmond Hotel Cipriani, over a magical in-room dining experience in our grand Dogaressa suite overlooking St. Mark’s Square and Doge’s Palace,” says Kangarlou. It was also in Venice where Mossberg discovered his love for Negroni Sbagliato which quickly earned the Milan tipple a spot on their wedding cocktail menu. They also purchased their first wedding item that very weekend, a Venetian mirror for their traditional Sofreh-e-Aghd ceremony.

“It was so important to me to capture my husband's Swedish and Scandinavian roots as well as my own Persian and Middle Eastern heritage in our wedding celebration and bring our two unique worlds together through the many details included in our wedding,” says Kangarlou.

“We were also very fortunate to have some fabulous fashion in the wedding including quite a lot of timeless designers – Oscar de la Renta, Miu Miu, Elie Saab, and Prada – but also some Swedish designers, as well as other beautiful heritage pieces, all entwined with some level of social impact,” she says.

While Kangarlou admits she’s always had her heart set on having her wedding at the Bel Air Hotel (“mainly because of their resident swans”), the couple decided London would be the ideal city for guests coming in from around the world.

Celebrations kicked off on Thursday evening with an exclusive reception at the British Museum’s Ancient Iran wing. Welcome drinks were served, as well as homemade baghlava. London-based Iranian musicians played traditional Iranian instruments and created an unforgettable ambiance for wedding guests as they took in the Museum’s thousand-year-old artefacts. The celebration continued at the Wallace Collection in honour of the groom’s European heritage. Swedish-inspired canapés were served along with champagne, wine, and signature cocktail Midnattssol (Midnight Sun) made with gin-based lychee.

For the welcome reception Kangarlou wore a custom-made dress that took over a year to bring to life.

Guests ended the evening with a private afterparty at members club Annabel’s. Kangarlou opted for a fun bubble dress by Miu Miu and a treasured vintage pair of Miu Miu heels. Mossberg donned bespoke Prada suits for the night.

The wedding ceremony took place at The Four Seasons, in Hampshire, after the couple visited in 2021 and promptly fell in love with it. “In many ways it was a blank canvas where we could implement our vision beautifully, yet at the same time it was like a secret garden straight out of a book where anything could happen behind closed doors,” says Kangarlou.

Nearly two years in the making, the blank canvas finally took shape.

“It is safe to say that almost all of the Iranian and Middle Eastern elements in the wedding came all the way from the original source, and all the Swedish elements came from Sweden,” says Kangarlou. “For every Persian element in the wedding, there was also a Swedish tradition and I wanted to make sure our guests get the ‘real thing’ and have an authentic experience even if the wedding was held in the middle of London.”

One example was placing a rosewater station in the walled garden of the Four Seasons to replicate the golab giri or rosewater ceremony, an annual tradition in the village of Qamsar, Kashan, “where local farmers distil millions of Damask roses into the purest form of rosewater made in the world,” says Kangarlou. And in a nod to Midsummer, Mossberg’s two nieces gave out flower crowns to guests upon arrival while wearing their traditional Swedish outfits.

While Kangarlou says the couple are not particularly religious, the ceremony space was meaningful, with every last detail executed beautifully.

The couple even opted to have a Sofreh-e-Aghd – an Iranian traditional wedding spread. “It was so important for me to have every single item of the Sofreh-e-Aghd come from Iran,” she says. “There are many symbolic items on the Sofreh all of which represent an element of the couple’s new life and union. The mirror and candelabras represent light and fire for a bright future, while the large flat bread and wheat signify prosperity and abundance. My candelabras and dishes all came from Iran, and our Venetian mirror came from Venice."

Before Kangarlou met her husband she knew she’d wear Oscar de la Renta on her wedding day; in reality, she wore two.

“One gown, that to me, looked like a swan [the couple’s favourite animal], and one more modern gown that I fell in love with the minute I saw it in Oscar’s bridal campaign that I ended up wearing during the cake cutting ceremony,” says Kangarlou. Kangarlou paired both gowns with Ralph & Russo Eden satin pumps and jewellery by family-owned house, W. Salamoon & Sons. “I chose a simple diamond stud and a two-tone flower-motif necklace for the ceremony; and later changed into an incredible drop diamond earrings that matched the leaves of my cake dress,” she says.

For their first dance, Kangarlou wore a full-length dot tulle and guipure lace dress with a deep V by Swedish designer Ida Sjöstedt, and a belted Elie Saab macramé playsuit for the after party.

Mossberg wore a bespoke morning suit by Luca Rubinacci with vintage gold cufflinks gifted by Kangarlou’s mother. For the reception, he sported a tux by Dunhill, and opted for Dolce & Gabbana for the after party, with shoes by Christian Louboutin.

With travel being such an important component to their love story, the couple named each table after a city they had visited together. “In each escort box, guests would find a little card with the name of the city (their table name) with a little anecdote of our time in that city, which was then paired with an evil eye that I have brought all the way form Istanbul for the night – 140 evil eyes to be exact!” she says.

And fittingly, the menu was global and modern with Swedish and Persian elements. “I made sure to have some traditional items sprinkled within, including individualised herb platters (a staple in every Persian table) for dinner, and a touch of pomegranate, saffron, and pistachio here and there."

Guests’ take-home gifts were a beautiful blend of both cultures. “From Iran, I had ordered guests handmade pink and red porcelain pomegranates – the national fruit of Iran – and from Sweden, we got our guests lingonberry jam. We decided that for our wedding cake, we wanted to have the beloved Swedish princess cake.”

While pinpointing their single, favourite part of the wedding day is hard, the newlyweds have plenty of beautiful memories to cherish, but especially loved their time together on the dance floor.

“One of my favourite moments was after our first dance when we finished the dance successfully. But it wasn’t so much about finishing right,” says Mossberg. “But rather the fact that we succeeded as a true team— one unit.”