Contemporary aesthetics, Bangalee motifs: Onto a new era of modern weddings
Instead of borrowing ideas and props from other cultures, the key to making your winter wedding stand out is simple - stick to your Bangalee roots and keep things traditional
Dhaka may have the slowest moving traffic in the world. But it seems on the wedding front, the city is moving at 185 marriages/hour this winter – or even per day – especially given how the last couple of winters were marred by Covid-19. There is shanai, 'ganda phool', 'akhd', 'gaye holud', and 'bou bhaat' at every location you can turn to now.
The big question is: how to make one specific ceremony stand out from the rest in this wedding frenzy? The bigger question is why are Bangalees borrowing wedding ideas and props from foreign cultures when everything we need to base a wedding theme on is right in front of us: Bangaliyana.
So, can sticking to Bangalee wedding rites set a wedding apart from the rest? It sure can and it did. BGMEA president Faruque Hassan's son Adeeb Hassan's 'gaye holud' just took place in Fortis Downtown Resort in Badda, adjacent to United International University.
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Open-air weddings such as this one are gaining popularity these days. It has many advantages over compact convention halls, no matter how well decorated.
Faruque Hassan and his family envisioned this wedding to showcase the best of Bangaliyana, and Sania Amin listened. Sania is the owner of FancyFeathers Inc, a Dhaka-based event management company.
"I have always been a firm believer in our rich culture. Whilst it may be the trend to use Mughal-inspired designs now, for example, I thought we could make an equally beautiful setting using our deshi elements," said Sania.
Sania designed an entire field with all the hallmark colours and props representing the Bangalee culture and everything came together beautifully. As nothing comes before food for every Bangalee, let us begin with the food kiosks that welcomed guests near the field's entrance.
The appetisers included fuchka, chotpoti, mutton halim, jilapi fried in ghee and topped with saffron flavoured malai, and malai cha.
The bride is a Filipina and her family flew in from the Philippines and you could feel there was a crossover between the Filipino and Bangalee cultures. However, the central Bangaliyana theme remained intact. On this, Faruque Hassan said, "We wanted to introduce my son's in-laws to our Bangalee culture through the wedding."
Most of the bride's family and relatives seemed to thoroughly enjoy the appetisers. Every bite of fuchka and jilapi, every spoonful of halim seemed to fill their face with glee.
Stalls looking like parked trucks sold colourful burnt-clay toys, glass bangles and teeps to guests. These trucks were adorned with vibrant rickshaw art. On the other end of the entrance, a dheki was laid down.
A little bit ahead, waiting for the bride was a palki [palanquin], a quintessential part of a true Bangalee wedding. And its beharas [palanquin bearers] were waiting to greet a bride who had never before ridden or even seen one.
But in the evening, when the bride finally rode the palki, she was practically dancing in amazement at how joyful a ride the palki offers.
"Paper flowers for the main dance floor, truck-like structures with our colourful rickshaw art, dheki, palki, clay pots and bamboo were used to give the entire place a deshi flavour. All the placemats had a Robi Thakur quote on them," Sania said.
The stage right behind the central dance floor was probably the most magnificently Bangalee in essence and nature. A chandelier-like bouquet hung overhead, like a mistletoe. Kashphool (catkins) and myriad other pink, red, yellow, and white flowers of all sizes made up the bouquet.
Flowery plants crept up supporting beams on the stage like overgrowths, uniting with the overhanging bouquet. As Bangla songs like 'Noya Daman', 'Lilabali', 'Sundori Komola' etc blasted at peak volume from both sides of the stage, the bride could not help herself but groove to the beats.
Then again, who could? Young boys and girls were ecstatically performing alongside those songs on the dance floor. In between songs, the groom's family came on stage to tell snippets of the bride's and the groom's story of coming together.
Being a holud event, guests were clad in colourful clothes, perfectly complementing the decor. As the sun came down, the venue lit up with hundreds of lights and the dance floor came to life as 'dhulis' [dhol players] went wild with their dhols.
A while later, a professional dance group dressed in sunflower-yellow sharis came to dance to more folk songs.
One after the other, as the bride rode the palki, the groom was brought in on the shoulders of his family members, the dhuli played the dhol, the dance group performed, tales were exchanged, the night finally caught on and dinner was served.
Dinner was plain polao, tandoori chicken, vegetables and paratha.
"I believe in 'Made in Bangladesh' with pride. Even at BGMEA, as its president, I am working to uplift Bangladesh's image on the global platform. This has triggered me more to keep this wedding exclusively Bangalee," said Faruque Hassan.
Sania corroborated his claim.
"It was all possible because my clients were both set from the beginning to introduce their daughter-in-law, who is half Canadian and half Filipino, and her family to the beauty of our heritage and asked me to come up with something that was a fusion of both contemporary and the deshi look. So, while the main stage had a more contemporary look, it blended right in with everything else with the use of colours," she said.
