While in older days families used to save for heirloom jewels and embroidered clothes, prosperous times and aspirational middleclass have led a rat race of designer duds for weddings. To quote Anthony from SATC, “you can’t have a bride wear a dress from no one.” She hasn’t been maintaining a Pinterest board and Asiana cutout scrapbook for nothing. Also, no matter where you stand on the-not-so-great “dowry” debate, brides need (and get) atleast 15-20 luxury pret options. It’s not just a day people; life of a Pakistani bride is more like a season of an Indian soap opera on Colour TV.
2. Qawali , Variety Shows and even Milad FTW!
Given we as a nation don’t have many things to do in leisure besides shopping and eating out, we definitely have found ingenious ways to augment our wedding events beyond sanity. Now not only are there the ubiquitous engagement, mehndi, nikah and valima, there are qawali nights to loosely tie-in culture, oxymoronic variety shows to keep guests entertained and even Milad to sprinkle some religion between all the supposedly heretic dancing and singing.
3. Mehndi Ubtan? I hope you mean dermatologist aesthetician!
Yes, the only yellow you see these days is probably the yellow ladus, as more and more young brides choose not to look like a Simpsons’ characters and risk looking jaundice-stricken just a few days before their big day. Instead, you start seeing a dermatologist, an aesthetician or even a plastic surgeon if you need to get things zapped, smoothed and even chiselled into place. So, don’t get shocked when you notice the bride looks a bit startled or swollen.
4. So you thought you would dance!
While we can all reminisce a certain aunty who took somebody’s So You Think you Can Dance dare a bit too seriously, these days you hire a choreographer and troupe of extra dancers bursting synchronised moves at the back in matching kurtas. There are lit up dance floors, disco balls, lasers and even Yash Raj romance sequence for the bride and groom to dabble in their toes (just in case if you are into these things). Songs range from the Pitbull mashups to grossly inappropriate Sunny Leone ones you name it and the Saroj Khan-like choreographer will make sure you atleast get a Tony nomination if not Filmfare.
5. Snapchats, drone videography and Instagram trends
Now you have to top the recent trend of getting your Shaadi hashtag trending on Instagram. If you like sharing the fleeting experiences, then Snapchat stories by your chhoti are the next frontier. Taking the embarrassing candid shaadi videos to new heights quite literally are the wedding videos captured through drone cameras – you thought you could canoodle with the hot cousin in the dark corner huh?