{"id":385894,"date":"2025-04-13T07:00:19","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T10:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/?p=385894"},"modified":"2025-04-14T10:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T13:11:12","slug":"lebanese-celebrant-marries-arabs-in-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/lebanese-celebrant-marries-arabs-in-brazil\/","title":{"rendered":"Lebanese celebrant marries Arabs in Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The daughter of a Lebanese<\/strong> father and a Brazilian mother, Marcelle Ghieh<\/a>, 55, was born in Lebanon<\/strong> but moved to Brazil with her family at the age of 12. From the beginning, her adaptation was quick and natural. Her ease in learning Portuguese and her close ties with the Arab community<\/strong> led to a life-changing job opportunity: becoming a wedding officiant for the Arab community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDespite my mother being Brazilian, she didn\u2019t speak Portuguese at home. Like me, she also moved to another country at the age of 12, but she took the opposite path. She went to Lebanon and ended up spending most of her adult life there,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While living in Lebanon, Ghieh attended a Catholic school where she learned to speak French. This knowledge ended up helping her when learning Portuguese. After just two months of studying the language, she received the award for the highest Portuguese grade in the entire school.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"In
In ten years, Ghieh has officiated over a thousand wedding ceremonies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

After graduating from high school, she decided to pursue two degrees: Tourism and Law. \u201cThe latter ended up bringing me closer to the registry office in Foz do Igua\u00e7u, a city in Paran\u00e1 [state]. As a deputy clerk, I was able to officiate weddings,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the same year I started working at the registry office, I officiated my first wedding in both Arabic and Portuguese. I married two Arab brothers to two foreign women\u2014one from Canada and the other from the United States. They wanted their native language to be spoken during the ceremony. The legally required parts were in Portuguese, but the rest was in Arabic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Weddings
Weddings in Foz do Igua\u00e7u, S\u00e3o Paulo, Argentina, and Paraguay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

After that first wedding in 1993, word quickly spread that there was someone in the city who could officiate ceremonies in Arabic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In ten years, Ghieh estimates she has conducted over a thousand ceremonies. Beyond weddings, she also began assisting the community in other important moments, such as registering their children. \u201cI’d suggest names that sounded good in Portuguese and warn about those that might lead to bullying at school,\u201d Ghieh shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even after leaving the city\u2019s registry office in 2003, the Lebanese native continued to be sought after as a wedding officiant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUntil 2020, while I was still living in Paran\u00e1, I officiated thousands of weddings\u2014both for the Arab community and for tourists of various nationalities. The ceremonies, held in banquet halls and even in front of the waterfalls, no longer had legal validity. However, they never lost their sentimental value.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a sense of duty fulfilled, the officiant has spent all these years uniting couples, both in Brazil and abroad. \u201cFor me, it\u2019s incredibly rewarding to help my community. I\u2019ve always felt deeply connected to Lebanon emotionally, and in this way, I\u2019ve served my country even from afar. Over the years, besides officiating weddings in [Brazil\u2019s] Foz do Igua\u00e7u and S\u00e3o Paulo, I\u2019ve also conducted ceremonies in Paraguay and Argentina.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to being a wedding officiant, Ghieh also takes pride in being a master of ceremonies. Her ability to learn new languages has led her to host events for the United Nations in China and Germany. Besides Arabic, Portuguese, and French, which she learned in her youth, she is also fluent in English and Spanish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ghieh\u2019s history in Brazil<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Fleeing the war, Marcelle Ghieh left Lebanon with her mother and her three younger siblings. Her father arrived three months later. For the first four years, the Ghieh family lived in her maternal grandparents\u2019 house in Bras\u00edlia, the capital of Brazil\u2019s Federal District.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Through
Through the celebrations, Ghieh sees herself serving her country of origin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I was 16, my father got a job opportunity. So we moved again, this time to Foz do Igua\u00e7u, in Paran\u00e1 [state]. From the start, we really liked the city because of the large number of Arab immigrants living there. I was able to keep speaking Arabic and living among other immigrants,\u201d recalls Ghieh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Close to her community, adapting to the food and climate also happened naturally. \u201cFrom the moment I started officiating weddings, I felt even more welcomed by the Arabs living here. We\u2019re very hospitable and welcoming. And I believe that by working as a celebrant, I can share a little more of my culture with others every day,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the pandemic, the Lebanese woman moved again, this time to S\u00e3o Paulo, where she continues officiating weddings for the Arab community and other foreigners who seek her services. \u201cBecause of the close ties I developed with the Arabs in Foz, I end up returning to the city that welcomed me at least once a month. And I can say that going there feels like going back to Lebanon, my homeland,\u201d says the wedding officiant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more:
<\/em>Artist creates 9,000 flowers for Arab celebration<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Report by Rebecca Vettore, in collaboration with ANBA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Translated by Guilherme Miranda<\/strong><\/p>\n

Supplied<\/div>
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Marcelle Ghieh moved to a new country with her family as a teenager and now dedicates herself to officiating ceremonies for Arab immigrants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2342,"featured_media":384390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3066],"tags":[6009,6808,9534,2268,48585,37213],"class_list":{"0":"post-385894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-society","8":"tag-arab-community","9":"tag-arabe-en-2","10":"tag-brazil-en","11":"tag-lebanese","12":"tag-lebanon-2","13":"tag-libanesa-en"},"wps_subtitle":"Marcelle Ghieh moved to a new country with her family as a teenager and now dedicates herself to officiating ceremonies for Arab immigrants.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2342"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}