My future hubby and I live in Canada, and we both have a few family members here (a couple of aunts/uncles/cousins on each side), as well as a large base of family friends. But the majority of our our blood relatives live in Pakistan. For our wedding, I wouldn’t want to go back to Pakistan for the whole thing, since I’ve only been to Pak twice in my whole life and although I have tonssss of family members there, I’m not super close to them. My life and my friends are all in Canada.
I’m considering that a good compromise would be to do half the wedding here and then part of it in Pakistan. Have you or someone you know done a wedding between two countries? If so, which events did they do in their “home” country and which in Pakistan? How did it work out financially? I really don’t want to do my baraat in Pakistan because I know certain family members of mine there will try to take control of it and run the whole thing and I would just have to go along with whatever they say..
We won’t have our baat paaki until later this year, which is why we can’t ask our parents what they want yet. But I just wanted to consider the options.
Re: Wedding split between Pakistan and another country?
I was married in Pakistan.
I was raised in the US. Hubby was raised in the UK and was planning to move to the US after the wedding. I asked if I could have my wedding in Pakistan because I knew that many of my first cousins and aunts and uncles (particularly those on my mother's side) would not be able to attend if the wedding was in the US.
Mine was the first wedding amongst our circle of friends, so there were lots of festivities leading up to it. But it did mean that many of my friends were not able to attend the wedding itself in Karachi.
Mangni: at my parents home -- very big function including family and friends. 1.5 years before the wedding
Dholkis: a few, at my parents' home, one at my chacha's, one thrown by our family friends all leading up to the wedding
Mehndi: Karachi
Shadi: Karachi
Reception: done by my parents in the US, in the first year of our marriage
Valima: done by my inlaws in the UK, upon our first visit there after the wedding (which happened to by over 2 years later)
Re: Wedding split between Pakistan and another country?
Yeah, that makes sense..thanks Eastern and Sahar! That is what I was thinking. But then another issue is that after having the huge expense of the wedding (which I am actually going to be contributing to myself), to then fly my family over to Pakistan will be another expense. Perhaps I could only take my dad or just my mom or something, because I think it will be hard for everyone to go over there for just the one event.
Wow, those are a lot of functions, Sahar! Sounds like it all must have been tons of fun! How did you find it having the valima years after your wedding? Would you recommend it?
Sara516 - even though I'm not close relationship-wise with my family back home, they are still my immediate blood family and insist on me having my entire wedding there, which I am not willing to do. So to split the functions between the two places would be the compromise.