Guest Post-Farah Khan-Lessons Learned

May 7, 2016- I signed our nikkah contract, handed the pen over to the Imam, he gave it to my (now) husband, and BAM. We were married. We partied the night away at our mehndi event afterwards, were fed fruit from a fruit basket, and danced the rest of the night away. Husband and I were long distance for awhile, and are finally closing the gap now! It has been an incredible experience so far, and being married is 100000x better than planning a wedding.

To any other brides (and grooms!) who are reading this right now, BREATHE! You’ll be okay, and you will look fabulous and everything will be amazing. Whatever goes wrong will make for a great story afterwards J. My own crazy story? My family forgot his wedding band. During the nikkah ceremony, one of my bridesmaid’s SO was at my parents’ house, being guided by my MOH to find his band and he could not find it. Alas, we had to exchange rings at the reception the next day. It’s pretty comical to reflect back on it now to think how worried and frantic we all were, when we were just able to do the ring exchange the next day anyways.

Here are some lessons I learned while planning my own wedding that might help you as well!

1. 1- Throughout the wedding planning process, find time to completely detox from wedding related activities. Even if it’s just one night to binge watch a new show on Netflix, or get dressed up and eat a fancy dessert at a café. Just don’t let the wedding take over your ENTIRE life, because after everything is said and done, you will return to reality and realize life is so much more than just one event.

2. 2- Don’t feel pressured to conform to some pre-determined wedding timeline for someone who has had a 2-year engagement when you have 6 months. A lot of desi engagements are on the shorter end, and you might not have as much time as the longer engagements. That’s ok because shorter timelines help you narrow down on decisions sooner, leaving you with less time to overanalyze simple decisions.

3. 3- Instagram is your best friend. Don’t have an account? MAKE ONE NOW. I’ve found vendors on Instagram who are based in Pakistan/India, contacted them through WhatsApp, and then paid them via PayPal. As a techie, I can say this is an incredible opportunity and we live in an awesome time where global shipping is fast and reliable. Take advantage!

4. 4- How do you search on instagram you might ask. So here’s the thing. Because of the way instagram’s search algorithms work, as soon as you start tapping on one vendor’s clothing page, others will start to pop up. I started by simply typing in Pakistani clothes in to the search box. Keep using the explore tab on the app and more and more vendors will pop up. You can even start by following some of the vendors Hira has vetted and mentioned in her blog.

5. 5- If a vendor isn’t working out, let them go. The best vendors will work fluidly with you, and it will feel as if everything just clicked in place.

6. 6- It’s ok to complain about how expensive weddings are. A lot of us haven’t planned an event to this scale before, and the initial sticker price can come as a shock to many folks. I was flabbergasted when I realized how expensive it was for one person’s meal!

7. 7- Outsource as much as you can for the day of. You do not want to be the one picking up something last minute the day of your wedding and risk running the other events later than planned. Need something to be picked up? Ask a friend to stop by.

8. 8- Hire an MC/day of coordinator. But specifically, an MC. That is one of the most crucial parts of the wedding timeline, as he/she will help the flow of the program run smoothly and hype the crowd up when energy gets low. Make sure they are aware of the timeline in advance and they know who your key members are.

9. 9- Do something out of the ordinary. Be creative with any and every aspect. Guests will always remember something that was different but make sure it is personal to your personalities. We had a lightsaber sendoff because my hubs is a Star Wars geek. People loved it, and it fit his personality so perfectly.

Here’s a picture of my dress! I ordered mine from Bargello, and it turned out beautiful! I was a little hesitant to order online (never ordered Pakistani clothes online before) but the risk paid off. I wasn’t able to travel to Pakistan because I wanted to save my PTO for the honeymoon instead.

Here’s some close up of the kaam! The dress was made of three pieces, lengha, kameez, and dupatta. I finally fulfilled my obsession with mint green J.

Lengha: