Us Bengalis really like to get creative with our wedding invitations, and over the years I have seen everything from invitations delivered in miniature palkis (palanquins), in boxes of sweets, in glass bottles and in the form of hilarious movie posters with caricatures of the bride and groom.
For our invitations we wanted to give our guests a sneak peak into the theme of our Holud (one the pre-wedding events which I will be posting about soon), Rustic Glam. As we have multiple events in our weddings, we also have multiple invitations, and this is especially important as each of the events have somewhat different guest lists, despite having great degree of overlap. You can imagine how much fun planning all of this must be.
Traditionally, the bride and the groom’s families gift matching attires to close friends and families to wear to the Holud – think bridesmaids and groomsmen, except this was many of our close friends and almost all of our extended family, meaning hundreds of people dressed in attires from the groom’s side, or the bride’s. These attires are usually given with the invitations and so, we thought of designing a box in the Rustic Glam theme, which would contain the invitations, the attires, chocolates as a sweet treat and a special little gift they could keep as memorabilia, an engraved crystal pen.
The box was designed by my mother and she hand selected each of the items, everything from the burlap to the lace and the pearls, that was to adorn them. Although it was exhausting, putting together the invitations was incredible fun.
One of the stacks of invitations as we were putting them together
Naveed and I personally designed the inserts of our cards and searched long and hard to find complementary, yet dissimilar laser cut cards. The butterfly card, which was the Holud invitation just gave a little touch of the garden theme and some of the unused butterflies were actually used to decorate the carriage in which I entered our Holud – more on this soon ! Stay tuned.
A few members of team bride (red) and team groom (green) on the day of the Holud 🙂
Weddings in Bangladesh have incorporated customs from the world over and in recent years the inclusion of a Bridal Shower in the wedding festivities has soared in popularity. Given the already long list of events, I personally did not think I would have the time or energy to have one for myself, but the insistence and support of my wonderful friends and family made it happen, and I am so incredibly glad that it did.
I’ve long admired well-tailored suits, but it was during the six months before the engagement that I truly learned and understood the details and intricacies of a perfectly tailored suit or tuxedo. Naveed has always been picky about his suits, but for his engagement, he needed perfection and so a custom tuxedo that was tailored exactly to his body, from a company that is trusted for its suiting seemed appropriate to us.
We loved the beautifully crafted black tuxedo, with wide peaked lapels (I learned so much about lapels during this time), that was on display at the Collins Street store (Melbourne, Australia), however, there was one small problem and that was the colour, black. In both our families, our mothers consider the colour black an inauspicious colour for any wedding or pre-wedding festivities, and it’s a sentiment that is echoed by many, but not all Bangladeshi families. Keeping this in consideration, we decided to opt for the colour navy. Now we know that many will argue that a tux jacket can only come in black, midnight blue or white, but we decided to switch it up a little and add a pop of colour and individuality.
Before posting about the details of what we did on the night of the Pre-Engagement Dala Exchange, I’ve decided to write a little bit about Naveed and my looks for the evening. This first post is about Naveed’s.
As we had also decided on an underlying blue theme for the evening, he decided to pair the panjabi with a blue jacket and nagra shoes. This form of panjabi-jacket pairing has become immensely popular in recent times, and this style of jacket itself is now known by many names. Some call it a ‘Mujib Coat’, after the former prime minister of Bangladesh, and father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, others call it a Nehru Jacket, after the former prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, whilst others call it a ‘Modi Coat’, after the current prime minister of India, Narendra Modi. No matter which name you refer to it by, it’s evident that it’s a style that has been adopted and popularised by powerful and influential men of the Indian sub-continent.
One of the most popular Bangladeshi pre-engagement/wedding customs is the exchange of ‘dalas’ between the future bride and groom and their families. So what’s a dala? Traditionally, a dala is a bamboo or cane basket that is beautifully decorated, and used to display the gifts to the bride and groom. Now as the years have passed, dala decor has become more and more ornate and extravagant. There’s often a playful competition between the bride and groom’s family about who makes the better looking dalas, and as a consequence, over the years the dalas themselves have become more elaborate. Today, some families (like Naveed and mine) are choosing to replace the bamboo or cane with woodworks, artistic carpentry, mirrors, glass, perplex and array of decorative items sourced from a variety of countries. 
Naveed received his gifts from my family and I received my gifts from Naveed and his family. As the bride, I received some special treatment and was gifted jewellery from both families (I’m beginning to realise that getting married comes with many perks).
Sweets from Naveed’s family to my family (extended)
Nabila: Trends and Traditions 