Nassar was born in Byblos, Lebanon, where he attended school. He pursued his higher education in fine arts at the Academie Libanaise des Beaux Arts from which he graduated in 1992.[4]
Career
After his graduation, Nassar worked in advertising in Lebanon before traveling to Egypt in 1998, where he served as art director for a local advertising agency.[5][6] In 2004, a chance favor for a friend, who had asked him to organize his eight hundred-guest wedding, was Nassar's first venture into this domain. A Saudi royal who was among the attendees was so impressed that he offered Nassar to plan his son's wedding.[5] One year later, Nassar relocated to Riyadh to pursue his new wedding designer career.[5][7] He returned to his native Lebanon in 2007,[8] where he established Once, a wedding design company.[3]
Nassar is best known for designing extravagant, themed weddings, catering to the Middle Eastern and Gulf Arab countries' elite.[5] His event designing list includes Elie Saab Jr.'s wedding to Lebanese socialite Christina Mourad,[9][10] the wedding of Miss Lebanon 2007 Nadine Wilson Njeim,[11] the wedding of Malek, son of Lebanese billionaire and prime minister Najib Mikati,[1] and more than fifty Saudi royal weddings.[5]
Book publishers and owners of luxury lifestyle company, Prosper and Martine Assouline, attended a conference at the Regent's College in London where they met Nassar,[12] and in 2012, Assouline published Once Weddings, a luxury design coffee table book covering more than a hundred of Nassar's wedding designs.[13] Nassar wrote another eponymous work in 2020, also published by Assouline.[14] In 2021, Ziad Raphael Nassar and his team at Once were selected to manage the Lebanese Pavilion at Expo 2020 held in Dubai.[15]
al-Kateb, Adnan (2013). "زياد نصار لـ هي :هاجسي إبداع ديكورات خلابة تنمي الخيال" [Ziad Nassar for Hia: My obsession is creating stunning decorations that nurture the imagination]. Hia magazine (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 25 June 2013. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
Khazaie, Roujean (2012). "Once upon a time". Modern Luxury Brides California. No. Premiere Issue. p. 46. Archived from the original on 9 September 2022. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
Sayidaty staff (27 August 2016). "الأنظار تتجه نحو فستان زفاف نادين نجيم" [All eyes are on Nadine Njeim's wedding dress]. Sayidaty (in Arabic). Archived from the original on 1 November 2016. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
