The FIVE things you need to STOP DOING at your Big, Fat PAKISTANI wedding!

Contributed By: Zainab Khan

Hate them or love them, you just can't ignore them.

The extravaganza that is our wedding season is an endless Pandora's box of who can outdo whom and our social media platforms are the fuel that further this fire.
Cause if Pinky wore HSY to her Milad how can you ever expect Salma to not get Élan for her Mehndi? It's just absurd I tell you.

"Moving away from the 'essentials', in a bid to outdo last year's wedding of the century, brides have hopped onto the hot potato trend of glamming up everything from the centrepieces at the reception to the designer 'bidd' boxes leaving all of us mere mortals with nothing but our souls to mortgage in order to match up to one-tenth the amount of lavishness."

So if you belong to the second category and actually do care about not accumulating a debt the size of Croatia, here's a list of things to avoid bedazzling or maybe just avoiding altogether:

1. Invites

I don't care where you're coming from on this one, NO ONE apart from you and your mom will keep these around for longer than the season itself whether you pack it with diamond-studded watches or Laduree macaroons.
Be original. Get a graphic designer to work on a theme you'll love, print those babies on decent stock paper and you're done. Next.

2. The Cake

All hail the glory that is the Wedding Cake. I have yet to attend a wedding where the fancy delicacy, once cut and the event photographed, actually reaches my salivating mouth. Maybe it's just my deplorable luck but still, WHY spend an inordinate sum on something this inane (but oh-so scrumptious)?

3. Dance Floor

Don't get me wrong, I like to party it up as much as the next booty shaker but seriously, do you REALLY need the chest-racking cough inducer that is the smoke machine? Or the cameras mounted on cranes that do the snake dance trying to keep up with your moves? I know for a fact that the video quality isn't bettered by this redundant piece of machinery and no one is going to thank you for the drones that promise to always almost smack you in the face as you go about your business.

4. Pre-Wedding Events

Now I KNOW that your Mehndi dances must be the singular most coordinated displays of human bodies thumka-ing in unison, but come on. Two whole months of this bi-weekly boot camp? Have mercy. On our feet and your parent's pockets. And then the Dholkis and the showers and the Sangeets and musical nights and jora-giving dinners...

5. The Guest List

Yes, your mom's childhood neighbour's son's wife did get you a teddy bear on your first birthday but is it really necessary to repay her by having her and her four kids come to your Barat? Same goes for all the 'acha nahi lagta' biradery or social circle invitees that anyone ever did or will extend the invitation to. This illogical argument that has inconvenienced so many of us who have been on the receiving end and bankrupted sponsors i.e the parents of the happy couple is a trend that has got to die out. If only for the sake of my make-up laden skin and heat-blasted yet perfectly blow-dried hair.



So in summation, it always pays (or rather saves) to keep the bigger picture in mind: your wedding is only the start of what may possibly be the best phase of your life. Celebrate it with those who care and do it without blowing through everyone's life savings!