Iftaar Party (Bribing my friends to come over and do some manual labor)

Until you have had a wedding in your house you don't exactly know all that is involved with pulling a wedding off. I am getting married this August and since I am the second child in the family to get married I knew I would need the help of my friends to get things done. Since it is Ramadan, I decided to have my friends over for some food (nihari! my favorite) and help me get some stuff done.

For the main ceremony everyone will eat together at the mosque. We have invited over 500 people; that is a lot of guests to provide with napkins, cups and cutlery...oh and food of course. In the mosque, we will eat sitting on the floor around a large metal disk called a taal. All of our food is placed on the taal and we share the meal family style while mostly eating with our hands.

Oh all of the SOLO cups...

We always start a meal with a taste of salt. It acts as a palate cleanser and reminds us about how lucky we are to have food in front of us. Since it is such an important part of the meal we like to dress our salt up in style. Thus we are decorating these cute little holders for each taal.

Painting some swans

One of our wedding traditions is that the bride's family gives gifts to the groom and his family. My fiancee has a large family so we have lots of things to wrap up prettily.

Wrapping up the gifts

We got a lot done this night. Thanks guys! Please wish me luck in getting the rest done!

~Maria