12:39 p.m. ET, August 6, 2020
This bride thought "I'm going to die" when the blast went off at her wedding photoshoot
From CNN's Aditi Sangal
Dr. Israa Seblani poses for her wedding photos in Beirut, Lebanon, on August 4.
Mahmoud Nakib
It was all
captured on video. A short block from her wedding venue, 29-year-old Dr. Israa Seblani was in the middle of a pose for her wedding photoshoot when the explosion happened in Beirut. Seblani, her husband, Ahmad Sbeih, and the video crew ran for cover with destruction all around them.
“At that moment, one thing I thought about, “Now, I'm losing my life, I'm losing my husband, I’m going to be buried under a building, now I'm going to die. Now I'm waiting the moment. How I'm going to die? Is it going to be fast? Am I going to feel it? Am I going to be near him?’” she said.
Seblani, a US resident and Lebanon native, was in Beirut to get married because her husband had not gotten a US visa, despite waiting for three years. Not wanting to be apart any longer, they decided to celebrate in the capital city of Lebanon, where their love first blossomed, CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh reported.
When Seblani returned to the wedding venue, she said the beautiful restaurant had transformed into a “nightmare.”
“It turned out into a ghost town, filled with dust, shattered glass. People yelling, bleeding.”
Prior to the wedding, she had done a final run through of the bridal suite where the couple would spend the night after the party. She was excited about the decorations. But when they returned, the red rose petals thrown off the bed were all that remained of the romance they envisioned, Karadsheh reported, adding that in a city where life was turned upside down in seconds, the couple are just grateful to be alive.
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