By Abdur Rahman (London)
Asian Weddings costs a lot of money. Averaging £50,000 to £70,000 from each side. Societal pressures often make people have to spend such amounts. Inviting 500/700 people to an Asian Wedding is normal.
What’s left is often thousands of pounds of debt or life savings from the parents gone on the wedding. And if you ask the bride and groom, they probably didn’t even want such an extravagant wedding.
If you don’t invite people to your wedding, they get upset. If you don’t have an expensive wedding..people call you cheap, if you don’t have a limousine..people whisper..and most of all, us Asians are so fussy when it comes to food..that if the food isn’t nice..we start complaining..dude, the food is free, you are a guest..just be polite and learn some decorum and come to the wedding with a suit on at least!
Perhaps the way forward is to have an intimate wedding with close family and friends. A wedding that is memorable and beautiful without having to spend 70k. We need to start using our imagination and also forget about societal pressure and just do what’s right for the bride and groom..it is after all their big day.
Soyeb Aswat from London suggested "I don't see the problem with inviting large numbers of guests and keeping it simple. You can feed people well and cheaply. Do away with the ostentation and bring back some humility."
Saira Begum Mir who also lives in London commented "People need to change their attitude , they themselves need to learn life is not about glam ..it’s simple stop showing off!!"
Abdul Malik Collins, a white retert who is from Cambridgeshire recalled his weeding over twenty years ago "Yes bhai, for years the trend has been to show off and spend loads of money on critical, ungrateful people. At my wedding it was a local community centre and food cooked and served by relatives. Nice intimate family weddings are what we should strive for."
Yashmin Harun who got married 20 years ago in London suggested "My wedding had 500 guests. No glitz and glam. Just in a community hall. Everyone was fed everyone enjoyed themselves. There was none of this bride and groom going missing For hours for photos it was all family and guest orientated and didn’t cost £1000’s! Maybe we just need to go back to basics!"
Awais Abid explained "Pakistanis are spending £40-£70k on weddings . They blow £5-£10k just on fireworks £20k + on hired cars some are paying £35k+ on wedding halls inclusive of food etc, then add the gold, designer outfits , stages, cakes , extra jazz & thousands of guest to feed & much much more... All of that easily adds up".
A great suggestion was given by a Fatima from North Lanarkshire "I would rather give the money to the kids maybe they can put it towards a deposit of a house or go to hajj etc"
Zaheer Zay Ahmed explains "The best way is to follow the sunnah, simple Nikkah at the masjid with the witnesses and close family & friends and then a walima where you call your guests again close family and friends. None of these so called lavish weddings is Islamic in anyway. You pay for your guests to come eat your food and talk about you behind your back."
Perhaps the way forward is to have an intimate wedding with close family and friends. A wedding that is memorable and beautiful without having to spend seventy thousand pounds. We need to start using our imagination and also forget about societal pressure and just do what’s right for the bride and groom... It is after all their big day.
