Europe has received 89,000 Syrians and Palestinians who have fled war-torn Syria since 2011, a mere 4% of the total number of refugees created by the war. Neighboring Lebanon has received more than a million, Turkey almost 800,000.

Today, from Morocco to Turkey, Syrian citizens pay between 1,000-15,000 euros to get to Europe, by land and by sea, with 55% arriving in Sweden and Germany. Illegal entries are still criminalized and the Dublin Regulation is rigidly applied. Nationality tests are carried out and detention cases are registered. The list of issues, disappearances and scandals continues to grow. But since October 2013, the horror of war and death at sea has arrived on European shores. On Oct. 3, 2013, 366 bodies, the majority of whom were Somali and Eritrean, were recovered 1 kilometer (0.62 mile) from the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, while on Oct. 11, 268 Palestinian and Syrians died at sea between Malta and Lampedusa.

The documentary "On the Bride’s Side" was born out of this horror. It started with the reality at Milan’s Central Station, where large numbers of Syrians arrive before departing again toward northern Europe, paying extortionate sums to traffickers for a clandestine transit through Europe. And so filmmaker Antonio Augugliaro, freelance journalist and writer Gabriele Del Grande and Palestinian-Syrian poet Khaled Solaiman al-Nassiry decided to devise a wedding to cross European borders with a wedding procession. I was invited to the wedding. I was invited to be on the bride’s side. And so we accompanied five Palestinians and Syrians to Sweden.