Arranging a wedding for hundreds of guests spread over a number of days is no cakewalk. Wedding season is upon us and across the country, an entire industry thrives on the revenue that elaborate weddings bring in.

Mohammad Azhar, 50, decorates henna plates – used in mehndi functions – at his workshop. “These things never go out of style,” he says gesturing towards his elaborately adorned and colourful handiwork.

From the artisans that craft elegant wedding dresses to the craftsmen that design the paraphernalia used for every traditional rasm, there is a veritable assembly line of enterprising businessmen and women who have reduced the madness associated with arranging your son or daughter’s wedding to an efficient one-stop solution.

Khurram, 42, and Nadeem, 25, showcase bridal dresses to the customers at their shop in Moti Bazaar. “Everyone wants the best clothes for their wedding and we try to make sure the outfits are affordable. A wedding dress can range from Rs5,000 to Rs20,000,” they say.

Clothes and the wedding outfit are a major part of the bride’s preparations for the main event, but nearly everyone who goes to a wedding wants to look their best. This means that the winter months are especially good ones for clothes merchants in the garrison city. Everyone from the bridesmaids to the children in the family are opulently dressed in the finest fabrics. “A dress can cost anywhere between Rs5,000 to Rs20,000,” says Khurram, a clothes merchant from Moti Bazaar.

Farman Afridi, 38, oversees preparations for a wedding at the Iqbal Palace Wedding Hall on Dhamyal Road. A seasoned wedding planner, he has been in the business for nearly seven years. “Most people want their children to get married with a flourish and they prefer wedding halls because such venues offer affordable rates and take care of most of the small details that ordinarily make wedding planning a logistical nightmare,” he says.— Photos by the writer

Professional photographers are relatively new entrants to the wedding business, but no ceremony is complete without an intrusive man with a camera.

Ghafoor has been decorating bridal cars for over 12 years at his flower shop on Saidpur Road. “Spring is always a good time of the year and business is in full bloom, just like my flowers,” he says.

The business is lucrative too, because everyone wants their wedding day to be immortalised. Arshad Javaid has been covering weddings in Rawalpindi for some years now, and says that he can earn up to Rs100,000 for a major shoot. The cost of the coverage usually includes the price of treating and printing photos as well as beautifully designed copies of the wedding album for both sides.

Professional photographers also make a killing at wedding events. Arshad Javaid, 42, has been a photographer for 22 years, but only recently started covering weddings. “It’s good business; a wedding shoot costs anywhere between Rs5,000 and Rs100,000. Every couple wants to look good on camera and its our job to ensure that, whether we have to airbrush photos or use extra lighting,” he says.

Getting the wedding entourage to the venue is also a big part of a wedding. Elaborate motorcades bring the baraat to the wedding hall, led by the distinctively decked out bridal car. Spring really is the best time for flower vendors who moonlight as wedding car decorators because it gives them a wide variety of flora and fauna to utilise.

Published in Dawn March 22nd , 2015

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