KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) — There's a crowd of people trying to take photos with the couple in the Radiance Banquet Hall, and you can barely hear someone speaking louder than the noise of 400 guests eating biryani and chicken tikka and the music and drone buzzing around the room. The bejeweled bride and her elegant groom are beaming.
Outside, the street is crowded with cars heading to wedding parties at the nearby wedding halls, L'Amour, Candles, and Hill Top. Hill Top, a multiplex, has three weddings going on simultaneously.
It's winter in Pakistan, and that means weddings. Lots of weddings. During the cold weather between November and February, millions of people attend weddings every week. Pakistani expatriates are returning home from all over the world for this season, crowding airport arrival halls and five-star hotels.
People call it Decembristan.
“December is a time when everyone has an excuse to stop worrying, no matter what your income level,” said Khizra Munir, a Karachi-based communications consultant. “Everyone is on the same page as we're going to live this moment. It's a great time for a reunion, and it's a great excuse to dress up.”
Weddings are one of the few opportunities for people in this conservative Islamic country to socialize and throw parties. So it's no surprise that people pull them a little.
A typical Pakistani wedding means at least three events, and often more: there is the engagement, a gathering when friends and family apply turmeric paste to the bride's hands and face in a pre-witchcraft ritual, and another ceremony to apply henna to the bride's hands and feet – which means… Of course more music and dancing. The bride gets a parade. And so does the groom.
In Karachi's Cantonment area, Yamama Teresa Bhagtani and Sharon Arjumand John tied the knot at Holy Trinity Cathedral.
Guests objected to the order of service, which one Muslim seated guest said was “very helpful” for navigating the Christian ceremony.
The wedding had the hallmarks of a traditional Christian wedding – white dress, hymns, organist, exchange of vows and rings – and a traditional Pakistani wedding, with numerous photographers and videographers capturing every detail.
They even escorted the bride down the aisle, but stopped when the couple and their families received Holy Communion.
The groom's father, the Bishop of Karachi, Reverend Frederick John, said Christian weddings are celebrated in the same way as any other wedding in Pakistan, including mehndi – when the bride receives henna on her hands and feet – and dholki, at the guests' disposal. Gathering at a family member's home to sing and dance.
Pakistani weddings seem to be becoming more elaborate.
Mounir said that she went to 10 occasions to attend the wedding of a family friend this season, and she wore different clothes each time. She said weddings have become so big and “exaggerated” that it is sometimes difficult to build an emotional connection. “It's all about fashion, what you're wearing, who you're wearing, have you posted a picture of your outfit?” The latest trend is for guests to hire a choreographer to help them perfect the dance performance.
Then there's the cost of all those parties. A wedding at a ballroom like Radiance can cost upwards of 1 million rupees ($3,576), a steep price in a country with an annual per capita GDP of just over $1,500. Inflation is high. A wealthier family can easily spend 10-20 lakhs on a single party.
Banks offer loans and other wedding financing up to Rs 3 lakh. Social welfare institutions, including the Pakistani government, support people from disadvantaged backgrounds or low-income families to pay for weddings.
But people still look forward to the wedding season, despite its demands on the wallet and wardrobe. “Worrying about how to manage all of this and the financial burden it entails is what has worried us all year,” Mounir said. “Decembristan is the opposite of focusing on finances.”
The bride in Radiance is named Dua — “like Dua Lipa,” said her husband, Asher — and she has been to three other weddings this season. “It wasn't really difficult because I was prepared for everything,” Dua said. “I love the wedding season. It's about people coming together to celebrate.”
Fizza Bangash is expected to attend 10 to 12 events during the season. “In Islamabad, there are areas where there are a lot of marriage halls in one place, so you can move from one event to another quite easily.”
Bangash got married on December 25 at The Pavilion, the oldest wedding hall in Islamabad, in the presence of 350 guests, including people from Germany, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. If she had her way, the number would be closer to 100.
But good manners require inviting the couple's extended family, work colleagues, family, and neighbors. Host families also need to consider which weddings they are invited to and reciprocate to avoid a social faux pas.
Bangash has fond memories of the home weddings she went to as a child. People set up a tent on the ground outside their homes and invited family and close friends.
“Now there are a lot of expectations about the food, the decor, the sound system and the tents,” she said.
There are dozens of venues around The Pavilion, boxy on the outside and bright on the inside, and many more are under construction.
At the Pacific Mansion Hotel, bookings are lower than last year due to inflation and competition from new venues, while the newest entrant – Zircon – is still accepting relatively small bookings of 100 people for the allotment crowd.
The Manor hosted 35 events in December and 28 events in January. “We have only been open for seven or eight months and this is our first season. Things have gone better than we could have dreamed,” said the hall’s general manager, Syed Hassan Mahdi.
“The trend right now for weddings is live cooking stations — steaks and pasta. There's no way people are going to do that at home,” he said.
Of course, some families still do it the old-fashioned way.
In Karachi's Lines neighborhood, a marquee was erected on open land in a residential area. There was no fancy decor, expensive furniture, or valet parking. In fact, there was no bathroom. Guests arrived on motorcycles or in brightly colored buses.
In a makeshift outdoor kitchen, wedding caterers were preparing kebabs and bread using a flashlight due to the hours-long power outage.
The groom's family had rented an electric generator, but it broke down, leaving everyone in the dark as the newlyweds began taking photographs. The groom, Abdul Rahman, seemed upset. The bride looked excited and resigned. Guests took out their phones and used them as torches until the electricity came back on.
The groom's uncle, Mahmoud Anwar, said that the family invited about 400 people, and that the cost of the ceremony was less than 400 thousand rupees. “There is no point in spending a lot of money on a wedding,” Anwar said. “You can give this money to your daughter or son-in-law.
“We did everything ourselves. It took us a whole day to set this up,” Anwar said, with pride in his voice.
By March, Pakistanis will be back to dealing with warmer weather and everyday problems, including all those bills. But for now, it's still Decembrist.
“The whole goal is to forget, during that period of time, everything that is dragging us down,” Mounir said. “We have political unrest. We have crazy inflation that we've never had before… Every year, it can't get worse, but it gets worse. But suddenly December comes.”
