KARACHI: The groom on his decorated high horse was surrounded by family and friends. All moved towards the bride’s home in a procession. Everyone was happy, everyone was singing and dancing to the beat of the drums. Some even tossed up money for the poor to collect as it was believed that it helped avert the evil eye.

At the bride’s place her sisters, cousins and friends waited for the approaching procession. Once the wait was over, and they spotted them from the windows, they raced downstairs to receive them at the entrance, showering flower petals on them and putting garlands around their necks. Later, when the wedding was over, the groom got back on his horse while the bride after saying farewell to her family got into that decorated box called doli that was carried by footmen to her new home.

Moving away from the traditions of 50 years ago, now the groom and his family are in constant touch on their mobile phones with the family of the bride. Everyone knows the estimated time of arrival and departure. There are no horses or decorated boxes big enough to carry a woman inside. There is just one car that will bring the groom to the wedding party and then whisk off with the bride after the ceremony is over.

Days ahead the calls are made and research carried out about who has the best car in the family and wouldn’t mind lending it for the wedding. If no one has a Mercedes, BMW, Lexus or an Audi, someone ought to have a Corolla or a Civic. And even there if nothing works there is always the rent-a-car service. The bottom line here is the car.

And the car is decorated enough to make it look like a royal ride. Earlier, for wedding car decorations people used to decorate their cars with paper flowers, buntings and strings. Most of the time they went pretty much overboard and decorated the windscreens too, blocking the driver’s view. But sanity prevailed, although after a few accidents, and now we see some improvement.

Fresh flowers is what it is all about these days. The cars arrive close to the time they are needed, otherwise the flowers would dry up and crumple. The florists, mostly at Teen Hatti, Hyderi, Gulberg and Gizri, all keep albums full of pictures of other cars that they have decorated earlier to help new customers choose a design. The costs, beginning from as low as Rs2,000 may go up even to tens of thousands. “Well, when the flowers used for decorating are imported then the cost may run into lakhs,” says Anwar Saeed, a florist at Gizri.

Among the local flowers they have a choice of different colour roses, tube roses, gladys, jasmine, marigold, etc. Usually, the florists fix an arrangement on the roof, bonnet and trunk of the car with individual flowers on the remaining spaces save the windows and windscreens. But before they can stick or fix the flower arrangements they need to have the oasis or sponges that lock in the moisture to keep the flowers fresh for longer in place. Other than the flowers different colour tulle also adds to the charm of the decorations.

Some people, who may still want to keep old traditions alive, also bring a doli to the florists for decorating though it is rare. Naeem Khan, a florist at Gizri, boasts of also having decorated bicycles and rickshaws for wedding ceremonies. “Why, poor people also have sentiments. They also like to decorate their rides,” he says before bringing out a photo of a rickshaw laden with marigolds, which he did for Rs10,000 a few months ago.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2015