I had already visited Egypt many years earlier on a mainly tourist trip to the Red Sea. I returned in 2024 and the country took on an entirely different meaning: not because of a monument, but because of four days spent in Abnub inside the life and Coptic wedding of a close friend.
I first reached Cairo. Over two or three days I visited the Giza pyramids and the Egyptian Museum and walked extensively through the city. I already knew these places through thousands of images, but their real dimensions — distances, traffic, people and the way antiquity coexists with the metropolis — could not be anticipated by a photograph.
From visitor to guest
The central part of the journey began when I travelled towards Assiut and then Abnub, my close friend's home town. I stayed at the groom's house with a small group of guests and took part in the days leading up to and surrounding the wedding.
I was not watching a celebration staged for visitors. I experienced schedules, journeys, preparations, meals and encounters from inside a family and a community. We also travelled by donkey, crossed places I would have had no reason to reach as a tourist and took part in three different celebrations over four days.
A Coptic Christian wedding
Coptic Orthodox wedding tradition brings together religious, family and community dimensions. Its forms have changed over time and may vary from one place to another, so my account does not claim to describe every Coptic wedding. It describes the one I was invited to in Abnub and the trust required to experience it at such close range.
Its value was not exoticism. It was the move from spectator to guest: someone had opened their home and a decisive moment in their life to me. In that setting, taking photographs was not only about finding a beautiful image, but understanding when to raise the camera and when to leave it down.
Authenticity cannot be bought
The pyramids and museum remain important parts of the journey. But my strongest memory is tied to Abnub, because an authentic experience does not simply come from visiting a less travelled place. It begins with a relationship: with someone recognising you, trusting you and allowing you in.
I find the same lesson in work: authentic connections are not collected, they are built over time. Without that relationship I would have seen a different Egypt — not necessarily less real, but certainly less close.
I have many photographs from those days. When they enter the site, they will add details that words cannot convey without simplifying them.
