Continuing her series on South Asian weddings, Adiba Khatun checks out the makings of a truly great day.
Behind every good weeding, there is great wedding planning – Asian style.
A wedding planner may sound like the job of one person and one person only. But we Asians have to do it a whole new way. Hiring a solitary wedding planner? No. Getting pretty much every member of the family involved in the planning? Heck, yeah!
Be it clothes, food, hall or even invites, when any one person is involved, so is the rest of the family. This can be considered both a blessing and a curse. Blessing because, well who knows you better than your own family? So you know they know what you really want. But a curse because, if there is something you don’t like about their planning, it’s hard to say no.
From this you can see that Asian culture is very complex: tough and hard wearing on the outside but as delicate as a flower on the inside (or is it the other way round?).
The production of an Asian wedding – make no mistake, the whole thing is really one big production number – is no exception in this. A single wedding outfit can take anything from eight to 10 weeks to make, and even longer if the style you have chosen is not already familiar. Next come the halls. Asian families tend to be quite large in number so the hall typically has to accommodate at least 200 people. Not to mention the fact that a hall is required for each of the four events which jointly comprise a wedding.
Then there’s the food. Although most halls will provide the food for you, some families like to add a personal touch and cook at least part of it themselves. Yes, even if there are 200 guests. I’ve seen it happen before and I’m sure I will see it again.
And finally, perhaps what Asians consider the most important aspect of a wedding: the film crew. This is considered the most important because the film really is the thing that will last the longest – except the marriage itself, perhaps.
So a lot of thought goes into this aspect. The cameramen and women take their roles very seriously because if the job is not done right, some Asian discounts will have to be considered!