In 2002, Pariya and Viktor split up. 15 years later, she noticed he looked at her LinkedIn.

In 2002, Pariya and Viktor crossed paths in a nightclub in Sydney.

“I was very smooth,” Viktor told Mamamia.

“No, he wasn’t,” Pariya interjected, laughing.

“We met at a nightclub. I was dancing and Vik came up to me and he recited his line of, ‘Hi, my name’s Viktor, what’s your name?'” she recalled.

“He considers that smooth.”

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After meeting by chance on a night out with friends, Pariya and Viktor soon began dating.

But after spending seven months together, Pariya, who was 17 years old at the time, and Viktor, who was 22 years old, went their separate ways.

“Peach [Viktor’s nickname for Pariya] didn’t want to settle down with me and I was ready to have a family at the time,” Viktor explained.

After ending their relationship, the couple, who are featured on the upcoming season of SBS documentary Marry Me Marry My Family, lived totally separate lives as they both went on to study, travel and build their respective careers.

“Life sort of just went on as we lived our separate lives without looking back,” Viktor recalled.

“But for me personally, there were moments of looking back and moments of reflection where I thought about Peach and what she was doing and what she was up to,” he added.

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Over the years, Pariya had similar moments of reflection – but she never reached out to Viktor.

“My mum loved Viktor and she was speaking to him for over a year after we broke up,” the now 35-year-old said.

“But I never saw him. I never looked him up. We thought about each other though. Every once in awhile, my mum would say, ‘I wonder what Viktor is doing, he was such a nice boy.’ And I used to say to her, ‘He’s probably married and has a million kids right now.'”

After 15 years, Viktor reached out to Pariya on LinkedIn. Instead of messaging her directly on the platform, however, he simply looked at her profile. (On LinkedIn, users are notified when a person looks at their profile).

“When I went to his profile, I noticed that he was quite professional and he knew that I would have known that he had looked at my account,” Pariya said.

“I was old enough to know that he was trying to reach out.”

Several weeks later, Pariya messaged Viktor and within just three months of talking, the pair started dating again.

From there, their relationship moved quickly.

In July 2018, after a year and a half of dating, Viktor proposed to Pariya at Sydney’s Taronga Zoo, putting the engagement ring on the stiletto heel of a Jimmy Choo shoe, which Pariya had mentioned in passing as her dream wedding shoe.

After a short, six-month engagement, the pair were married in a ceremony at the same place that they met on January 19, 2019.

As expected with a short turnaround, however, wedding planning didn't exactly go smoothly.

"I kind of planned things halfway but Vik wasn't doing jack sh*t – and you can quote me on that – so I thought I'm not getting married to someone who isn't going to help out from the get-go," Pariya said.

"I told him, 'You can either do the rest [of the wedding planning] or we're not going to have a wedding.' I was totally okay to end the relationship right then and there."

From that moment on, Viktor entirely took over the planning of the wedding.

"At first, everyone thought Peach was having a joke. But then I set up a meeting [with a vendor] and I actually rocked up and people then took us seriously that I was really taking over the wedding," Viktor said.

Pariya and Viktor, who come from traditional Iranian and Macedonian backgrounds, were also faced with the challenge of incorporating their cultural traditions into their wedding day.

"Vik didn't really want to incorporate [his cultural background] into the wedding at the beginning. He's not very traditional," Pariya said.

"But I wanted to incorporate Vik's culture and traditions into the wedding because I didn't want anybody to feel like his culture or traditions didn't matter."

In the end, the couple's wedding ran smoothly and their guests enjoyed the mix of Persian and Macedonian wedding traditions.

But although their wedding was a positive experience, the real test came after the wedding when they moved in together for the first time.

"It's been massively up and down," Pariya said of their first year of marriage.

"I've never lived with a guy before. I had lived out of home on my own but I had never lived with a partner or boyfriend or anything. For me, it was like a massive shock to the system and I didn't like it at all," she added.

"I feel like we've only just entered our honeymoon period now."

Viktor agreed: "There was definitely an adjustment period."

"I think we're more accepting of each other now."

Feature Image: Supplied.

You can find out more about Pariya and Viktor's story on Marry Me Marry My Family.

Season Two of Marry Me Marry My Family premieres on Tuesday January 7 at 8.30pm on SBS and SBS On Demand. The series follows six couples from different backgrounds and their cross-cultural weddings. 

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