Wedding bells for Iman Pahlavi, granddaughter of the last Shah of Iran, as her dashing beau proposes
weddings royals
Stephanie Bridger-Linning Ollie Macnaughton Clara Strunck Isaac Bickerstaff Ben Judah Rebecca Cope Eilidh Hargreaves Annabelle Spranklen Condé Nast
More than 60 years after her grandfather the last Shah of Iran married for the third time, Iman Pahlavi is preparing to wed
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Photographs of the proposal were shared on Instagram by Iman’s mother, Yasmine Pahlavi, who wrote: ‘Our sweet Iman got engaged this weekend. She and Bradley have been dating for three years. We’ve watched their relationship blossom and are so happy that they have made a commitment to share their lives together.’

The happy couple were later joined by Iman’s family, including her two sisters, mother Yasmine and father Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of the late Shah of Iran and the last heir apparent to the throne of the Imperial State of Iran. Until the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Reza was styled Crown Prince of Iran. He attended university in America, where he now lives in exile as leader of the self-styled National Council of Iran, an opposition group. He is an outspoken advocate of the Iranian democratic movement and a critic of the Islamic Republic government.

Iman, the middle of Reza and Yasmine’s three daughters, reportedly works in finance, while Sherman is employed by an e-commerce company, according to Vanity Fair Spain. The photogenic couple live in New York City, where it is possible the wedding will take place (it is easy to imagine one of the city's numerous high-end wedding venues bedecked for such an occasion).

However, it is unlikely that the nuptials will match the grandeur of the last Shah of Iran’s. Their wedding included a traditional Islamic nikkah ceremony followed by a banquet. This was the Shah’s third wedding, and the match was orchestrated by his 19-year-old daughter, Princess Shahnaz. The young Queen was studying architecture in Paris in 1959 when she was introduced to Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi of Iran at an embassy reception, before the couple’s engagement was announced on 1 December and they were married three weeks later.

After the pomp and celebrations associated with the imperial wedding, the success of the union became contingent upon the queen's ability to produce a male heir. Although he had been married twice before, the Shah's previous marriages had given him only a daughter who, under male-preference primogeniture, could not inherit the throne. The pressure for the young queen was acute. The shah himself was deeply anxious to have a male heir as were the members of his government. Thankfully, the couple had four children, Crown Prince Reza in 1960, Princess Farahnaz in 1963, Prince Alireza in 1966, and Princess Leila in 1970.

Like many other royal consorts, the Queen initially limited herself to a ceremonial role. In 1961 during a visit to France, the Francophile Farah befriended the French culture minister André Malraux, leading her to arrange the exchange of cultural artefacts between French and Iranian art galleries and museums, a lively trade that continued until the couple were forced to flee their country during the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The Shah passed away in 1980, and Empress Farah lives in exile in between Washington, D.C. and Paris.