Pre-Wedding Event: The Mayoun

Hi Everyone!

So I thought I’d break MyBigFatPakistaniWedding hiatus with a recap of all my wedding events starting from the top: the Mayoun!

For those who don’t know, the mayoun is the first event which kick starts a Pakistani wedding with singing, playing the dolki (drum), dancing and of course food. (What’s a Pakistani wedding without copious amounts of food?!)

You may remember how I mentioned I wanted to have my Mayoun at Toronto’s renowned Lahore Tikka House. Well, when that didn’t work out I decided I wanted to keep it super casual, and just have it at my brother’s small townhouse. But even though we scaled down the size of the event, the decor still had to be fun! I wanted my mayoun colour scheme to be hot pink and yellow and polka dots because let’s face it, what’s more fun than hot pink and yellow and polka dots?!

A few trips to the dollar store, lucky finds on clearance items here and there, and a lot of work from our family friends and we transformed my brother’s living room from this:

To this:

Of course, what’s event decor without accents? Here’s some snap shots of all of our dollar store finds from flower tea lights to polka dot plates!

Along with the decor, my mayoun outfit also was hot pink and yellow (naturally). I had actually gotten an outfit made for the occasion when we were going to have a bigger event and invite my in-laws when it was going to be at Lahore Tikka House, but when we decided to do it at home my sister gave me the outfit she had made from Ichra in Lahore. It ended up being pretty perfect (and yes that’s a mayoun selfie, lol excuse the poor pic quality!):

Soon after I took this, I started hearing my friends come in. None of them are desi so when they came upstairs to see me and exclaimed “you look so pretty!” I had to explain “no, I’m not supposed to!!” Lol (you’re not supposed to wear any makeup on the mayoun and mehndi so that you really shine on the actual wedding). After all my friends had got there they, along with my sister and cousin brought me downstairs under this very colorful dupatta we picked up in Liberty market in Lahore:

After they brought me into the living room, I was put on a stool:

and my mom began conducting the rasms (traditional customs); telling my friends to feed me sweets, put ubtan (a yellow beautification paste made of tumeric but that she adapted to make with Nivea cream because I’m allergic to everything but) on my hands and feet “to make me white” (sigh, lol, our internalized racist views of beauty), and put flower jewelry on me. I’m sure for my friends this is an experience they will never forget! Here’s some of the going-ons of the evening:

Our family friend Shazia Baji is an amazingly talented henna artist and did all of my friends’ hands:

This pic, which is actually a pic of a Polaroid (my MOH has been bringing a Polaroid camera to all of my events) is probably my fave picture of the night, one of me and my big brother: 🙂

Overall, my mayoun was fun, casual and intimate, and ended with a happy mayoun ice cream cake (my fav!) in pink and yellow icing:

It ended with my group of girls, below, getting in another dance practice before they killed in on the dance floor two days later on the mehndi! Stay tuned to read all about the mehndi, next! 🙂

~Safa