Sister's Wedding

Lifestyle Wedding, Fashion & Beauty
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Hi Everyone,

It is my first post ever at Gupshup forums. I am a regular “reader” tho. My sister is getting married in about 5 months. No fixed “date” yet but it is definitely going to be in May or June 2012 InshAllah.
It is first wedding in our family. We live in Toronto, and wedding will be taking place here. Now we are not sure whether to shop here or go to Pakistan for shopping. Most of my relatives are in Karachi. However, I have heard that best to do wedding shopping in LHR for clothes and jewellry from Karachi. Can anyone of you share your experience or help. I would like to know:

  • if it is best to shop for the outfits from Toronto as now we have many ladies selling Pakistani designer outfits or their replicas here.
  • if I do go to Pakistan then wher to shop? Lahore or Karachi?
  • If I go to Lahore then can you guy give me name of some of the desisgners who are good but not outrageously expensive.
  • If I go to Karachi then which are the designers I should be shopping at?

Lastly, I am the only sister of the bride and therefore I want to stand out the most AFTER the bride ofcourse. I want to have the most nicest clothes from all of the girls who will be attending the wedding. Any ideas? for mehndi, shadi and walima?

Looking forward to your responses as I know there are many helpful members on GupShup forums.

Thanks once again,
Amber

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Re: Sister's Wedding

Hi Amber,

Wow, i was in the same exact position as you a few months ago.. my sister just got married this past Sept in Toronto :)

You can definitely do some wedding shopping here. My sister got her bridal outfit from Oriental Costumes in Mississauga. I got my outfit for the shaadi from Zaibi Jewellers in Brampton.. you can customize your outfits there and they do a great job. We primarily dealt with a lady named Roohi (I think) and she was very nice. However, if you do decide to order outfits from there, I would recommend giving them a date a couple of weeks earlier than you actually need the outfit because my outfit came in quite late (a week before the wedding) and I know of two other people who have had the same issue with them. They did a great job on the outfit, but they definitely have issues with getting their orders in on time.

But since you're asking for the **best **option, it would obviously be to do your wedding shopping from Pakistan because the prices will be relatively lower and there's a wider variety to choose from. My mom went to Karachi to do the rest of the wedding shopping including our outfits for the mehndi. She got a gorgeous bridal jewelry set for the shaadi and everyone loved it. She also got great jahaiz outfits from Tariq road at reasonable prices. She didn't get anything 'designer' so unfortunately I can't recommend any names to you, but just keep in mind that you can still get amazing outfits at reasonable prices without having a designer label on them!

All the best!

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Re: Sister's Wedding

Hi "marigold",

Thank you so much for your suggestions. I will definitely check them out. Do the places you suggested get their clothes from Pakistan? Also, we are looking for some venue ideas. Where did your sister get married? If you can give me the names of the banquet halls that would be great.

Thanks once again and I do hope more people can give me suggestions as we only have 3-4 months.

Thanks,
Amber :)

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Re: Sister's Wedding

If you have family and friends there that can shop with you, I would say go and shop. We do all our shopping from Karachi, just cuz that's where most of our relatives live. And everything's been great so far.

If it's logistically too difficult to go, then is there anyone you can trust to shop for you?

Is there enough variety in Toronto?

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Re: Sister's Wedding

If u knw anyone in pak u can get clothes from pakisytan or can order online. there's are so many good home base designer like me. u can check their stuff and negotiate the prices with them

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Re: Sister's Wedding

Yes, both the places get their clothes from Pakistan.

The wedding was at Chandni Gateway and we had around 250 guests. The hall is really nice.. the lobby is quite spacious compared to the other Chandni halls so it was great for cocktail hour. Chandni has awesome food and good customer service.. can't go wrong with choosing any one of their halls.

And as for variety Sahar02, I think there is definitely more variety these days.. its just a matter of finding the right places. Zaibi has great formals and semi formals for good prices and they are very up to date on the latest fashion in Pakistan. Also, I recently went to an eid mela and got two semi-formals from a really nice girl who sells suits from her basement.. she gave me both for $70 which I thought was a great deal.. they were both the long flowy gown type. It may seem like there is a lack of variety in bridal based on what they have on display, but you have the option of getting it custom made at some places.

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Re: Sister's Wedding

In Brampton there is a store called "Haseen Fashions" or something along those lines. She only sells designer clothing from Pakistan. She has Nomi Ansari, Zainab Sajid and Threads and Motifs. The clothes are very expensive, except for the Threads and Motifs outfits.

Nomi Ansari - beautiful outifts, I loved them! Prices start at $400 and go up to over $1000 (per outfit!). (semi-formal and formal)

Zainab Sajib - again, beautiful outfits! Prices start at $350 and go up to $800 (semi formal and formal)

Threads and Motifs - most of the outfits are really nice, but they are more party wear than formals. Prices start at $180 and go up to $300.

Im sure you can go there and also ask about ordering bridals if you guys decide not to go to Pakistan.

And if you decide to go to Pakistan for shopping, I dont know anything about Karachi, but in Lahore the most afforable designer in my opinion is Sarah Salman. She has amazing clothes at reasonable prices - prices for semi-formals start at Rs 15,000. You would have to look up her contact info cause I dont have it. But if you go to Lahore, just go to MM Alam road and there are so many designers you can visit and choose from. Also try Mina Hassan (on MM Alam rd), she has very elegant outfits, very stylish outfits, and each outfits uses so many different fabrics/elements that is looks amazing.. her prices start at Rs 20,000 and go up from there.

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Re: Sister’s Wedding

Hi Guys,

All these suggestions are really helpful. Keep em coming:) Panache is there anyway for me to check out your collection and work samples? You can e-mail pictures to me at [email protected] if you don’t want to post them here.

As for buying from here in Toronto, it would be nice and yes there is variety but definitely not as much as Pakistan, ofcourse.

Saimab33 thank you so much for your suggestions for designers in Lahore. I am from Karachi so I know I can find some good variety for good prices there. However, do have relatives in Lahore and we are thinking that we might just go to Lahore instead of going to Karachi as colours and designs of outfits are definitely different and nicer there.

Marigold, I know Chandni is really nice but unfortunately they are booked for the dates we are looking for. We just might move the dates by a couple of dates just to get the venue as it is important to have a nice venue as well as nice food. Have you ever heard about “Red Rose Convention”? If anyone has any reviews about them then definitely let me know. Which venue do you think would be good for Mehndi? We would have about 80 to 120 people depending on how many ppl are “dhula wale” are inviting.

I will keep on updating this forum as we get along in our wedding planning and preparations with my experiences as it may help someone else in their wedding planning. And I can refer back to it when time comes for planning my own lol :hypo:

Looking forward to more of your suggestions..

Thankkssss xx

Amber

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Re: Sister's Wedding

Completely different suggestion. Its a service similar to Renttherunway, where you can rent/purchase clothes. There's a desi version of that now called Luxemi.com. Looks pretty interesting!

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Re: Sister's Wedding

Amber, we also checked out Red Rose.. we didn't like their menu and found them quite over-priced. If you can't get Chandni I'd suggest Woodbine or Versailles. Many people have mehndi's at Woodbine as well so you should definitely check them out! Oh and you could try Candles Banquet Hall for the mehndi as well.. i think it is owned by Pakistanis.

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Re: Sister's Wedding

I found the guy at Red Rose to be quite rude, and his prices were quite high, even in the off season. When we went to see him, we made a comment about wanting to have a really organized wedding, and his response was "you are doing one wedding, I do 100's of weddings a year" and he said it really rudely and in a cocky tone. Also, for an off season wedding, he was charging over $60/head.

Woodbine, Chandni, Versailles, and Verdi are good choices.

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Re: Sister's Wedding

Surprisingly, there is a lot of choice here in the GTA -- Toronto, Mississauga, Scarborough, Milton, etc; There are a lot of small businesses where ladies import clothes from Pakistan and sell them -- the prices aren't as bad as they were a couple of years ago, mainly because there are so many of these small in-home businesses now. It's better than going to Pakistan and sweating your butt off looking for the right cloth and waiting for the darzee to do the sewing for you :P

Check out Paisleys Pearls on Facebook - I believe she's in Milton - she has really nice clothes. Sara Shaikh in Mississauga also has amazing bridal wear! I fell in love with her bridals, and they aren't that expensive either -- you can get a decent one starting at $1,000. Oriental Costumes is good as well. Shazia Habib opened wraps two years ago in Mississauga (it's near Erin Mills and Mavis). Wraps is a little over-priced and I wasn't TOO fond of the clothes there, but then again, I went there last winter, so maybe they've gotten better. Jamayz is another store near Eglinton and Erin Mills intersection -- the clothes are nice, but extremely over-priced and the designs are a little weird :S But anyway, you should check these places out.

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Re: Sister's Wedding

I'm getting married the first weekend of June iA and live in Toronto. Our Mehndi is at Woodbine. You can try there...the guy is generally a nice man and is reasonable too. Plus it's quite popular for Mehndis. Other decent options would be...I think it's Bombay Palace or something? Also, Candles. I'm not too sure about Verdi but my parents went to a wedding there and said the food wasn't great.

For our Reception - we're having that at Missisauga Convention Centre. They have a patio in one of their halls so it's really cool if you have cocktail hour and such. There's also Pearson Convention Centre. But if you're looking for some place cheaper than you might wanna try Woodbine, Versailles etc. Some other nicer options (if you want a downtown wedding with a pretty view) Palace Royale, Atlantis and even Old Mills. Those are a bit expensive though. We wanted to go for one of those, but we have tons of guests, so it was getting too expensive. If you're guest list is small, you can try them as well.

As for clothes - I had looked for some here. Like someone mentioned, there's Oriental Costumes in Missisauga. And a few more stores on Airport Road in Brampton. I've heard of people get clothes from there, because the good thing is - you can customize it to the way you want. But luckily, my mom was going to Pakistan anyway, so I figured I;d get her to get it from there. There was so much more variety in Pakistan and she said there's gorgeous clothes out there compared to here, of course. So if you can, do check it out in Pakistan. If it's a hassle going there, then I'd suggest find something that you may like, and see if you can get it customized. Only thing is, you can't see what it's really going to look like until you see the final product, and I wasn't comfortable with that. She got mine from Karachi, from Shakeel's and his price was reasonable. She also got my sisters' clothes from there.

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Re: Sister’s Wedding

Hi Everyone,

Thank you sooo much for all your suggestions. Keep them coming. So we have finally decided on Chandni Gateway for the wedding (great service) and Verdi for Valima (not the first choice but long story)…

Most likely my sister and I are going to Pakistan as it’s not just her wedding outfits she needs her bari clothes and my whole family needs clothes so in the end we will still save money…We are not planning to custom design every single outfit.. we are just planning to pickup nice ready made stuff which in the end would save us money and we would be able to bring it back with us.

I will keep you posted on our search so it may help other people starting to plan their wedding.

So first venue we checked was Red Rose.. really nice from inside not so nice from outside…the guy said he is giving us an amazing price for $48/ head as the regular price would be $55/head..that was waay over our budget and he wasn’t even giving us enough food choices…menu isn’t all that great for the price and he just wouldn’t budge on the price as like SAIMAB33 said “he has done hundreds of weddings” and people look elsewhere but always come back to him…not soo in our case..

My sister looked at Erin Mills Convention Centre, as per her it’s in a strip plaza so the outside is not nice but inside is quite nice…she talked to the guy there who said they do Halal catering and he hooked her up with a good price…we decided not to go with it as the dates changed last minute and they didn’t have the dates we wanted

Versailles is completely booked for the dates we were looking for but the manager there is nice enough. It would be a good choice for Mehndi and small functions..

We also looked at some not so nice places…:nook:

Went to look Dreams Convention centre but the dates were booked…but the place is nice from inside not sure what they would offer as prices..

Everyone would know about Payal again issue with the dates as we were lookin at Canada Day long weekend.

Appollo Convention centre is alright if you want to go with contemprory decor as their theme is black, grey and silver…wouldn’t go with most desi wedding colours…they guy said they charge extra for quite a few things like different colour lighting and etc.

So we are looking for Mehndi venue now…

Oh and btw we have booked this amaaazing makeup artist for my sister for both Shadi and Valima..she is super nice…

Still so many things to do..still looking for suggestions for

-backdrop and venue decorators
-DJ
-Videographer
-Photographer
-makeup artist who charges reasonable prices to come at home for makeup and hair for the bridal party

BTW anyone going to Pakistan for their wedding shopping or have recently been? Would love to hear your experience.

Thankss xx
Amber

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Re: Sister's Wedding

Did you look at Chandni Banquet Hall? It's gorgeous! Four of my friends got married there - a little over done, but the management keeps upgrading the facility!

Whose the makeup artist?

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Re: Sister's Wedding

Hi Sparklesnflorals,

Yes we booked Chandni Gateway for the wedding day. And it does look really nice. We do know a couple of friends who got married there. It was our first choice and we ended up getting it even if it is a little over budget but my sister is super excited lol.

As for the makeup artist we booked Naila Tausif of Royal Med Spa. I don't know anyone who had previous experience with her but we will in a few months time how she is. Most of the people we talked to recomended Shirley Wu but she was booked solid on the dates we were looking at.

I am however, still looking to find a good makeup artist who has reasonable prices for the bridal party. Somone who can come home and get my mom and few other ladies and cousins ready as I will be with the bride so I am just getting ready at Royal Med Spa as well.

Any suggestions?

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Re: Sister's Wedding

Hi Tea1234,

I just wana let u know that Naila Tausif is simply awesome . She did my bridal makeup n hair 3 years ago . She did my engagement ,Nikah, Mahndi, shadi n walima . she gave me every event different look. everybody just loved it offcourse i loved my makeover too. I got it done eveything over there like Bridal facial, waxing body polsih or wrapping ..... Even i'm going ragularly at her spa for facial and everything..... It was awesome ...So you are in a good hand...I was in a same board eveybody was telling me about shirly wu but i hv seen her 2 or 3 brides and i didn't like it at all.......shirly some time does a great job some time not.....I hv tried many other makeup artist too but i found her the best ........Best of luck for eveything:)