Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
Do you all feel that the price you spent on your dresses is justified or could you have done with something cheaper? Since the dresses for most are just sitting in suitcases or closets.
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
Do you all feel that the price you spent on your dresses is justified or could you have done with something cheaper? Since the dresses for most are just sitting in suitcases or closets.
agree..
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
Tklucky8: my walima lenga was same as urs. Only difference is the linings. My were purpule linings. I got frm lhr in 2006.
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
i have been reading this thread for a while now … dresses r simply gorgeous 
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
i got only 9 days for my engagment preparation..
and i got dis dress made in one week
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
Pretty MashALLAH !
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
Pretty MashALLAH !
shanum remove my pics from ur post bcoz i will remove my pics from my post tooo
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
Dafodil you got it from where?
Its adorable :)
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
Dafodil you got it from where? Its adorable :)
thnks .........nawab zari and dulha house chandni chowk
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
thnks .........nawab zari and dulha house chandni chowk
Okay.
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
shanum remove my pics from ur post bcoz i will remove my pics from my post tooo
pics removed.
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
Would love to hear some more stories! Any new brides out there who would like to share? Any older brides who didn't get a chance to write their story? Please share!
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
I got married in the late of November 2011. Multiple functions were something the effort and expense of which neither my family nor my in-laws thought remotely prudent, so we went with a small, intimate gathering for a dholki/dinner at my place two days prior to the main reception/rukhsati at a catered external venue.
I was the first bride in my immediate family since my Phupho twenty-odd years back -- so suffice to say we were totally out of our element with the how-tos of bridal jora & accoutrement shopping. Had it not been for the timely intervention of my Phupho's cousin, her guidance and, of course, her invaluable bargaining skills, we'd have been stumbling blind a whole while longer. Since my date was initially decided for mid-September, most of our preparations worked that deadline until the postponement was necessitated. As such, we did the legwork for the joras in the swelter of June in Lahore after my graduation.
As it transpired, though, our rukhsati jora hunt took all of one day. I went in having fulfilled my own shauq with a peach-ivory gown on my Nikah a year or so prior; this time, red was my colour. I also went in halfway certain that in the end I'd be asking the lady who made my Nikah dress to replicate something for me: to that effect, I'd put together a portfolio of design possibilities and modifications beforehand for if (when, I thought) it did come to that.
We -- myself, my Phupho and cousin-Phupho (hereafter referred to as CP) -- started with a brief romp through Liberty Market where we looked into the dupatta gali kaamwaalas for quality in that same line of thought; mostly, though, they were lacking the kind of finesse i had in mind, and they had that alarming propensity to incorporate flamboyant, garish elements into otherwise passable designs regardless of client preference. That was a no, then.
While we were in the neighbourhood, we decided we might as well check out the retailers: there's a couple of adjacent shops that go by Wedding Asia and (I really can't remember the other one) that we looked in at. The dresses there tended blatantly towards the trying-too-hard-to-be-eccentric side. As such, the cuts were so avant-garde they were costumish and loathe to drape, and the work was so fusion it was neither here nor there and attempting desperately to right those wrongs with random profusions of crystals. The kicker, though, was the price tag. 1 lac fifty, they said. See you never, we said.
Next stop was Sonia Azhar's outlet in Gulberg, and it came highly recommended: this was where CP had many many joras made in recent years; her own daughter's bridal from eight years ago, and joras for her sister's son's brides in the years after. All of those were lovely concoctions, so I was eager to see what the place had in store (lovely place too, by the way, posh cross between residential and studio).
Alas, the Sonia Azhar of yore who'd come up with them seemed to have gone AWOL, and we were out of there in ten minutes. Or less. There was a total of five dresses on immediate centerpiece display, and each one was more bafflingly odd, for want of a better word, than the next. I remember this one dress -- you know what they say about offwhite being a hard colour to go wrong with? Yeah -- that had a huge, bizarre spiderweb motif of silver and crystal work spattered across the entire front of the lehnga and continued onto the (anachronistically short) shirt. The rest of the dresses, too, were only remarkable in the worst possible way, in lurid colours with patterns that were anything but sophisticated. They alone were plently enough to baffle and dissuade us in themselves, but the icing on the cake was this lady who'd been arguing in the anteroom off the display for the entire time we were there: out she stomped, almost plowed headlong into CP, and declared, 'Kabhi naa banwaana inn se kuch bhi, meray saaray joray ka satya naas maar chhora hai!' before making an emphatic exit.
So we hightailed it out of there and to Rabia aka nikah-dress-lady we went. She's a home-based designer that does pret and formal with a side of bridal, but seeing as I wasn't into the overblinged look anyway, I thought we'd do a decent job of customising something off the formals rack at her place or maybe get a design off my portfolio and make it work. Rabia in person was out of the country and unavailable, and one of her assistants came to show us around. I should mention that the dress that I picked for my Nikah from Rabia's was utterly, utterly fairytale lovely, an ivory-peach silk and chiffon affair with work spilling down the front from the neckline to the waist with sparser trickles on the skirt -- a nontraditional allsorts of pearls, cut-beads, crystals, stones and silver patterned in delightfully intricate designs; and it was an absolute hit on the day.
Rabia is not, it transpired, a jack-of-all-trades. The bona fide bridals that the assistant showed us were few because Rabia doesn't keep samples in stock; things are made to order and the customer picks them up. The two or three that were on hand were loud and heavy, not at all made to suit someone of my frame and stature (I'm five feet tall and I weigh eighty-two pounds, so yeah). in my previous visits to the place, I'd seen a couple of customers' bridals that Rabia had been keeping for delivery and they hadn't been half bad; but unless I got her in person I couldn't really decide. So we called a raincheck for whenever she was back in town.
At that point, Phupho and myself being the INSANELY practical-minded folk we are, were all for calling it a day and heading home. CP was initially okay with that, but she remembered me saying once upon a time that I was partial to Fahad Hussayn's designs, and she suggested we go to his place in Cavalry. Just for a look-see. We were reluctant initially, but eventually we let ourselves be wheedled into it. It was worth a look, after all.
FH happens to have some friend-of-a-friend connection with CP's daughter and he's worked with her before, so she called ahead and just told him in lieu of a proper appointment that we were on our way, eta ten minutes. At that stage he'd just shifted locations for his outlet and was in the rudimentary stages of the setup process, unfurnished and mostly carton-stored. He welcomed us anyway, and started bringing out samples to show us. I've mentioned before that I'd been a fan of his work for some time, because for me he manages to strike that balance between traditional and modern, that special something that others often go very wrong with. It was an impractical fascination at the time, mind: I knew I wouldn't be making my family cough up designer prices for my wedding dress at all.
Fate, then, that there we were anyway. And for the first time that day, I was realy liking what I saw. There was a lovely colour combo of deepest maroon and rust, but again, the silhouette wasn't very me. There was another one, a black lehnga with a chatta-patti border and a beige shirt and dupatta, that I'd probably have yessed immediately if I hadn't a grandmother who would take less-than-kindly to me wearing black on my wedding day, and changing the colours around would mess with the dress for serious. There was an orange&coral one with panel flaps on the shirt, but the work was a bit too full and heavy and reducing it in any space would have taken away from the beauty of the piece. When it seemed like we were running out of options, there came the jackpot.
When I told him I wanted a red bridal, FH brought out a non-sample: an unstitched but completely worked chiffon shirt, one of his yet-unreleased designs from an upcoming collection. It was a deep, brilliant shade of rich scarlet-crimson, and the work. The very finest thread of dabka in antique finish, worked with stunning delicacy into multiple motifs and a full bodice, with sparse champagne stones and pearl: the whole effect was one of flawless finesse and ode to tradition at its proudest. It was just the right amount of unusual, too: the shirt was long and jacket-style, with a ban collar, giving it an old-world elegance in that very bit of slight eccentricity. When FH sketched the prospective outfit for me, emphasizing that since the shirt was to be the centre of focus, we would omit work on the skirt entirely, I was sold.
The one thing still nagging at me was the fact that in default mode, the dress was monochrome. The only colour apart from the base crimson was the gold of the kaam, and I wanted offsets. Before I could get the words out of my mouth, FH goes, 'Dyou maybe want to add another colour to it? For depth?' Yes, I said. Green. He brought out a couple of samples of stones he had in green, and I picked a vibrant emerald which he later incorporated so, so very subtly into the patterns of the kaam on the shirt and the dupatta.
I had to make two more trips to FH's after that; once for taking a look at the worked, unstitiched shirt and dupatta, and one for the fitting of the outfit. It was immaculately finished and we picked it up a couple of days ahead of the agreed time.
For me, then, FH delivered. Excellent personalised customer service, very accommodating; quality work and bang for your buck, and the rare ability to work to a deadline. Check.
On the day, I remember Maram (at Maram & Aabroo's S&S) setting the dupatta on my head, the final flourish, and leading me to a full-length mirror -- when I looked up, I went slightly speechless. I've never harboured any grand delusions regarding my physical appearance, so this was somewhat unbelievable. At the event and after, there wasn't a person that I talked to that didn't specifically compliment the dress and ask where I had it made. Worked and heavy as it was, it still accommodated my ample moving around (I was that bride that basically went up and down the hall and greeted guests personally as much as I could). It was splendid.
The whole look was restrained and elegant; exquisite without costing a fortune, traditional without being typical, and trendy without trying too hard. Most of all, though, we didn't have to put in the kind of effort that people so often tell cautionary tales of ('Shaadi ka jora tau abhi se hee dhoondna shuru kar do, bara waqt lagta hai, bari museebat hoti hai banwaana, kaam khatam hee nai ho ga end tak!'). That's exactly what my family and I were looking to disprove. Win.
I loved it then and I love it now. Since the entirety of the kaam was concentrated on the shirt and dupatta borders, I've retired the skirt and had a chooridaar stitched to replace it and carefully packed the bundle away in muslin sheets and a trunk. I'm hoping (fervently) that I'm still naught over eighty-two pounds at my sister's wedding, because this one's something special and I need just that kind of excuse to wear it again. :)
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
^ What a lovely story! I think I need to look into more of FH's work :D
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
ha! got ahold of the uploader. :D
[please please do not quote or reupload, thank you.]
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
^thoroughly enjoyed ur write up.
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
^so pretty, mashAllah
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
haha, thank you, majesty! it was supposed to be shorter, really it was, but i'm a bit of storyteller. :o
Re: Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
^so pretty, mashAllah
thank you very much.
Tell us the story of your bridal jora!
Birdie your outfit is beautiful and you have amazing story telling skills!