full story:(CNN) -- Ayat Al-Qassab carefully slipped the beaded satin wedding gown over her small frame. She peered at herself in the rusted mirror and cautiously smiled. For a moment, her war-torn world was transformed and she was a beautiful bride -- free, safe and happy.
Boom!
A mortar shell exploded somewhere near her Syrian home in Homs, waking her from a daydream. She quickly wrapped a white headscarf tightly around her hair and prepared to leave for her wedding.
Only a week earlier, Al-Qassab met her husband-to-be, Mohammad Jumbaz. Their families had coordinated the introduction. He was a pastry chef and part-time fighter for the rebel Free Syrian Army which wants to oust President Bashar al-Assad. She was 18 and from a family who didn't like the al-Assad government.
They took no lingering looks across the room, and time didn't stand still when their eyes met. They simply chatted as Syria's nearly 20-month-old civil war rumbled in the background.
"I had a feeling in my heart," Jumbaz said, recalling that day. "I cannot describe it to you."
During the interview, a shell boomed in the distance.
"In a time when we are under siege and there are sounds like this, I told my mother I decided to fulfill half my religion and to get married," he said, "and without ever even seeing my bride, everything went perfect."
Al-Qassab agrees.
"We saw each other and we liked each other," she said, "and in just one week we were married to each other."
In Syria, marriage as defiance http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/08/world/syr ... index.html
... and this week:
Til death do us part: Marriage destroyed by war http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/29/world/mea ... index.html
RIP
