GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — In the wedding hall of El-Helou international hotel north of Gaza City, everything was spectacular: the decorations, lights and flowers. The bride, Fatima al-Awda, was mesmerizing in her white gown. All that was missing was the groom.

Wael Mhanna was not able to attend his own wedding in person because the Rafah crossing — the only means of accessing the Gaza Strip from Egypt — has been closed almost entirely since July 2013.

“Wael and I got engaged in January 2014 and decided to get married in August of the same year. But three months before our wedding, Wael traveled to the United Arab Emirates, having received a great job offer and knowing he would come back to Gaza on the wedding day. But we had to postpone the wedding to November 2014 because of the closing of the crossing. And as the crossing remained closed, we postponed it again to February 2015, and twice later. Wael was never able to come to Gaza to get married, which is why, eventually, I had to go on with the wedding ceremony without him.”

The couple was wed by proxy instead, via Skype.