Adiba Khatun continues tracking the South Asian wedding of Londoner Mr M.M. and Mrs L.M., formerly of Cambridge.
From London to Cambridge, from Cambridge to London – this was the journey mapped out for the groom on his wedding day.
Dressed in his wedding clothes, Mr. M left with his family to go to Cambridge to pick up his wife-to-be. When the two of them arrived in the hall, they initially sat in separate areas, ate their food and took some photographs with their respective families.
After all the greetings and food, the main event began. An imam, as this was a Muslim wedding, recited the vows and produced the marriage certificate; and the bride and groom dedicated the rest of their lives to each other.
Guided by her family, the bride then came gracefully through to the groom’s side and sat next to him, for the first time as a married couple. After this, more pictures were taken with the bride and groom as a couple, but this is where the truly emotional part begins.
The time came for the bride to embark on her new life with her husband. When they both rose from their seat, the emotions started to set it in, almost as if the bride only now realised that she was moving away from her own family. Tears began to flow. This aspect of Asian weddings is always so heart wrenching, seeing the bride hugging her family and bidding them farewell, since now she is moving on to another phase in her life.
The bride’s side of an Asian wedding is always a little sadder than the groom’s, as this is where the wedding ceremony ends.
However, these families decided to perform walima – the final part of he process – on a separate occasion. This final, formal meeting will be covered in another article.