Hey Ya’ll
I have been wanting to let this out of me and thought my aswell share the insight of a Asian Wedding belonging to a Pakistani culture. I love weddings, as I see it is the most romantic and the happiest moments of a couples life and it makes me happy and makes me think ‘awwwww’ and so I decided why not share it with you guys
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Well there is a lot of preparations needed for these events which I will be mentioning below. In event which I have been to in the previous years, if it is a close wedding, I would have to attend a lot of the events before the actual Wedding takes place. The events are as follows:
Dholki
The Dholki or Dholak (Urdu: ڈھولکی) celebration takes its name from the percussion instrument Dholki, which is featured heavily during this wedding celebrations. Just a week or two before the actual wedding day, women will gather in the house of the bride at night to sing and dance while accompanied by percussion instruments. Today, this ceremony has also been reduced to a single night of singing and is often combined with Mehndi or Henna ceremony.

This instrument is called a Dholak . The word Dholki is used as a event as a whole which is named after the instrument.
Here is a video of me playing the Dholak (drum). I know the videoing isnt very excellent but atleast you can see the whole idea of what the dholki event is like.
Mendhi
This is one of the main events of the wedding process. It takes place a day or two before the actual wedding day. It is usually held seperately for the bride and the groom. The henna is symbolically placed on the couple’s hands. The groom’s friends and family bring along sweets and henna for the bride, and the bride’s family does the same for the groom. The bride is absent on the groom Mendhi and the same goes for the groom.
The bride normally wears a green dress or yellows/orange for the Henna celebration and uses only light, or mostly, no make-up. The groom will typically wear a casual Shalwar Qameez. The bride and/or the groom are brought forward in the ceremony under a decorative rectangle material by their close relatives. In the bridal ceremony, family and friends apply henna to the brides hands, and feed her sweets. Similarly, on the groom’s side, oil is applied to his head and sweets are fed to the groom.
Even on this event a Dholki would take place, songs and dancing, in some cases it would become so exciting that a competition would take place between the girls side and the boys side of family.
A link I had found on youtube on what happens on a typical Mendhi ceremony:
A quick Highlight of Mendhi ceremoney:
A really good dance done on a Mendhi Ceremony:
Wedding Day
Barat
Barat is the procession of the family, relatives, and friends of the groom and they accompany the groom to the bride’s home for the official wedding ceremony. The groom makes his way to the bride’s home on a richly decked horse or car and the “barat” follows in different vehicles. Usually they are also accompanied by a band playing wedding songs. The groom is given a warm welcome by the bride’s family with flower garlands and rose petals thrown upon the procession by the bride’s sisters, cousins and friends. While he is entering the brides home he is also accompanied by a Dhol (drum) player so the Bride families knows that he has arrived.
After the Barat comes in the Bride then enters and has her entrance song played, she comes in with her two closely related male members during her entrance.
Rukhsati
The Rukhsati is the sending off procession of the bride when the groom and his family will leave together with his bride to go back to his house. This is a somber occasion for the bride’s parents as it marks the departure of their daughter from their home. The departure of the bride becomes a very emotional scene as she says farewell to the home of her parents and siblings to start a new married life.
Traditionally, the groom travels by a decorated horse to the bride’s house and after the wedding ceremony takes his wife in a doli (palanquin) to his parents’ house to live. The horse and the carts have now been replaced by cars, and in sharp contrast to western weddings, it is typical to see a quiet bride with wet eyes as she sits in the car beside her husband leaving for her new home.
Here is a video which I found on YouTube of an actual Wedding day :
Walima
This is done from the grooms side of the family. This day is just a dinner party for his side of the family. He may invite some of the bride’s family, but he invites a certain number of people from her side who is ever close to her family.
and they live happily ever after!
P.S Do let me know if I have made any kind of mistake. I only own one media on this page which is the Dholki video. The others I have found are on YouTube just to show what it is like in during the events.
Please do comment and tell me what you think and if you do not know anyone who knows how to play dholki maybe you know who to call