“When’s the big day!?” was a fairly simple question that is asked of brides-to-be. And the answer that is anticipated is: a date. ONE date.
Unless you’re having a Big Fat Pakistani Wedding (BFPW – consider the acronym officially coined).
Which, I had:
So, when I was asked “when’s the big day!?” my first response was usually “…well, the big dayS are [enumerate list of main function dates here] …not including all of the functions before and after.” When there were looks of awe (read: from white people) I proceeded to offer this explanation: “I’m having a Big Fat Pakistani Wedding!”
It’s this type of distinction that was part of the inspiration for starting this blog. Between explaining to my co-workers that I was taking a month off to go ‘wedding shopping’ in Lahore, to making all of my non-Pakistani friends understand that they would be performing choreographed Bollywood dance routines (ahem, sober) in a dance-off against my fiancé’s family and that I expected them to win (they won)…I thought this blog could act as a bit of a cultural GPS.
Plus, I wanted this blog to be for my fellow third culture kids. To access real insights of wedding shopping and the STUNNING fashion scene in Pakistan; the spectrum of lessons learned from planning my BFPW in Toronto; and most of all: to be a space for navigating, via your wedding, a culture that you’ve spent most of your life straddling.
My wedding is officially over, but all of my wedding content, from planning tips to vendor reviews, lives here. As I have evolved beyond the cultural abyss that is planning a big fat Pakistani wedding, so too has this blog. However, at it’s very core it is, and really always has been, about the fascinating intersection of aesthetics, culture, and life.
Enjoy – and happy planning!
~Safa
mybigfatpakistani 