LAHORE: The marriage ceremony of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s grand-daughter (Mehrun Nisa Safdar) will be held on Saturday.

The traditional wedding events have already started taking place at Jati Umra, Raiwind, with the rasm-i-mayoon held on Tuesday.

Nikah of the daughter of Maryam Nawaz Sharif with known industrialist Chaudhry Munir’s son Raheel Munir has already been solemnised in Madina, Saudi Arabia, in July.

Both the groom and the bride have studied at the London School of Economics, the alma mater of slain PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Rasm-i-Mehndi will be held on Friday (Dec 25, which also happens to be birthday of Nawaz Sharif); baraat reception will be on Saturday, while the walima ceremony will be held on Sunday.

Family sources say walima ceremonies will be held in the UAE and UK too next month.

Though all the wedding ceremonies are being kept a close family affair away from the public eye, selected footages may be released to the electronic media like in the marriage of Husain Nawaz, the elder son of the prime minister back in 1990s.

A family friend claims that politicians, diplomats and elite of the city will also be invited to the walima ceremony for which a special banquet hall and a helipad is also being established on the land of a family friend close to Jati Umra. The venue is under a heavy security cordon for the last one month or so.

According to the source, local as well as British tailors have been hired to prepare dresses of the bride and her relatives, while the turban the prime minister is likely to wear while receiving the baraat, has also been imported.

Published in Dawn, December 24th, 2015