Who pays for what?

in our family, the engagement and valima outfits are paid for by the guy's family, and the mehendi and shaadi are events where the girl makes her own outfits.

as for engagements, we do end up having a gathering- sometimes its huge with 200 people, sometimes (as in my case) it was smaller because we don't have much family here. in all cases, they do a little rasm where the mom's put haar's on and feed mithai to the couple, then he gives her the ring. in our case, he put the ring on me. and then after that, my parents gave us matching watches as presents, and mum put those on him and me. then we all ate a really big meal- yay! haha