I’m another week closer to my wedding, and I just finished up having my first pre-wedding party.  On Saturday my mom invited her closest friends over to the house to listen to a short talk (dars) on the etiquettes of dealing with in-laws and other new relationships post-marriage.  It was a lot of fun to have everyone come over and get into the wedding mood.  If I wasn’t sure I was getting married in just a few weeks before the party, I definitely know it now after the party.

This is primarily because everyone and their mother kept referring to me as the dulhan (bride).  They kept asking me if the dulhan was excited, or if the dulhan was nervous, or if the dulhan was prepared for leaving, or if the dulhan was happy, etc.  After a while it became kind of… annoying.  First of all, it’s weird to ask me questions in the third person.  Second of all, I don’t like being called the dulhan!

I know it sounds wierd because clearly that’s what I am, but I don’t like it being pointed out.  And the main reason why is because when I’m called the dulhan I feel like people are expecting me to act like a typical “dulhan.”  And I don’t like being told how to act.

For example, during the dars some people kept trying to tell me I had to sit where everyone could see me.  I refused and said I was fine sitting in the back with my friends.  And then again at the end, an aunty wanted to make a quick du’a for me and my future, and again, people told me I had to go sit next to her.  Instead I stood around in the back.  And finally, during lunch, I was asked by my mother to move an empty salad bowl to another sink in another room, and when I picked it up someone told me, I wasn’t supposed to because I’m the dulhan.  Yea, well…


I am dulhan, hear me roar!

I think I’m going to explode if people keep telling me I can or cannot do things because I’m the dulhan.  I’m not some fragile little pansy that can’t think for herself or do things things for herself because she’s getting married.  I’m not going to fit into the mold of every other desi bride in the world and sit in specific places, or wear certain outfits, or do and say certain things. Wedding or not, I’ll do and say as I please; thank you very much!!

Next time someone calls me a dulhan, I’m going to growl in their face.  Just you wait and see!!