Heartbreaking images show a woman knelt at her fiance's grave wearing her wedding dress three weeks after he was shot dead by a man he was selling an Xbox console to.
This was supposed to be the happiest weekend of 22-year-old Sara Baluch's life, the weekend she married 24-year-old Mohammad Sharifi.
On Sunday, she slipped into her ivory chiffon wedding dress wedding dress she'd picked out to wear at the altar and headed to the cemetery where the love of her life was laid to rest outside Nashville, Tennessee.
The cloudless day at Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens was captured in intimate photographs by Chattanooga's Times Free Press.
Baluch sobbed through her tulle veil as she knelt in the grass damp from thunderstorms the day before surrounded by loved ones who took turns reciting prayers and reading from the Quran.
'We were supposed to be together,' Baluch said as tears streamed down her face.
'I'm so sorry, Mohammad. I'm so sorry. So sorry.'
As they prepared to leave Baluch's mother Sona replaced her daughter's white wedding veil with a black one.
'We were so happy,' the 22-year-old said. 'I want to be with him. Why do I have to wait?'
Sara Baluch, 22, is seen crying over the grave of her fiance Mohammad Sharifi on Sunday, three weeks after the 24-year-old was shot dead by a man he was selling an Xbox to. Baluch is wearing the white dress she was planning to wear at their wedding scheduled for Saturday
Baluch's loved ones, including her father Masoud (left) and her would-be father-in-law Mohssen Sharifi (right) joined her for a memorial at Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens in Nashville. 'We were supposed to be together,' Baluch said as tears streamed down her face
Sharifi's father Mohssen can be seen with his arm around Baluch at his son's grave site Sunday
Baluch is seen clutching a photo of her and Sharifi at his grave, which has been covered with flowers and mementos as his headstone isn't finished yet
Baluch said of Sharifi: 'We were so happy. I want to be with him. Why do I have to wait?'
On February 19, Sharifi was shot and killed in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Hixson where he'd agreed to sell his Xbox One gaming system to D'Marcus White.
The 20-year-old has been charged with criminal homicide in Sharifi's death.
D'Marcus White, 20, has been charged with criminal homicide in Sharifi's death. He is seen above in his mugshot
Baluch was the first to arrive at the hospital after Sharifi was shot.
When she asked hospital staff for information about what room he was, she was told that her fiance wasn't in the system.
'I had the worst feeling,' she told the Times Free Press in an interview last month.
Minutes later a nurse approached Baluch and told her that Sharifi was dead.
'She held my hand, and she said: "I'm so sorry. He was shot. He didn't make it,"' Baluch recalled through tears.
'It was like the world was ripped from underneath me. It felt like I was falling and it wasn't stopping. I fainted.
