Southern Masala: Wedding in Pakistan Pt. 2- Getting Ready for the Nikkah

The day after my mehndi was the nikkah. The nikkah is the religious ceremony where the marriage is legally solemnized, so technically after the nikkah you are married legally and Islamically. For my nikkah we decided to make it a relatively small affair, at M's house, with just family and some really close friends invited. I think ultimately there were between 30 and 40 people there. I had already gone out and chosen my dress for the nikkah, which was a firoze green sharara with heavy yellow gold work, from Rizwan Mozzam, one of my youngest sil's favorite clothing shops in Karachi. It was the only one of my wedding outfits that I personally chose myself. All the others were picked out by sil and M before I reached Karachi, and then "approved" by me. A sharara consists of a skirt, a top (relatively short top, not long like a kameez), and a duppatta. The duppata on my sharara was very heavy, we'll come to that later.

Two days before the nikkah, I went to one of M's cousin's house to do a test run of my make up. This cousin had a beauty parlor in her house (similar, but smaller than the one I had my mehndi done at). I warned her about putting too much pale make up on me, since I am already a pasty face to begin with. Many brides in Pakistan wear very pale make up, which looks fine when you have darker skin, but I didn't want to end up looking like a mime on my wedding day! So she did the make up, and then we drove home. When we got there, M about died laughing, he said I looked like a zombie. She had put on too pale make up and really greeny-bluey eye shadow to match my sharara, but it looked awful. I told my sil's that they had to tell her to go much much more natural for me. I still had some misgivings about her doing my make up for the nikkah, but I couldn't say so, not wanting to hurt her feelings or cause any family tensions.

The day of the nikkah I got ready in the new big bedroom that would be "ours" once the nikkah was finished. Although I had been in Karachi for 6 weeks, I had been sleeping in my sil's room, while M slept on the floor in our bedroom. We had a new bed and he refused to sleep in it until we could both be there. So he was sleeping on the floor. So back to getting ready. I got my sharara on, with help from my sils and M's Appi. My hair was done up, and then M's cousin stepped up to do my make up. I didn't look, but when she stepped back, she had done a wonderful job! M's sisters had told her about what went wrong the first time and she corrected it all perfectly! Then I put on my nikkah jewelry, two 24k gold necklaces, gold earrings, and rings, and green and gold churian (bangles) that covered pretty much my entire forearms. Finally it was time for the duppata. M's cousin placed it on my head, and using about a gazillion hair pins, pinned it into my hair. It was so heavy! Then she safety-pinned it into my hair for good measure, and then safety pinned one side of the duppata to the shoulder of my blouse, to create a really nice cascading look. When I was finally ready, I had to be helped up to walk and move around, because the weight of the dress and accessories and moving around in my high heeled gold flowery chappals (sandals) was beyond the grace of my tomboy self :).

Finally, we made it down the stairs and into my sil's bedroom, where I was deposited and arranged, and then pretty much left alone, with some aunties and teenage girls, who basically just gawked at me and talked to each other. I don't know if they could speak English or not, but none of them talked to me. After seeing other weddings there, I understand why, because a lot of times the bride is supposed to me acting really sad and almost in mourning that she is about to get married, and not want to talk to anyone. So I don't think it was a snobby thing, just a normal thing at Pakistani weddings.

So there I was sitting and sitting and sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting...