“Personally, I feel that we need to change this mindset. A girl should not need a whitening lotion, a gold necklace or an expensive saree to be accepted as a bride or to make her feel confident. So I arrived at my wedding venue wearing my dadi’s saree, with zero makeup and no jewellery. People may call it simple, but it was very special to me, for what I believe in and what it means to me.
I faced a lot of resistance from many quarters after making this decision. Certain members of my family even said that they won’t take any photo with me because I didn’t dress like (they imagine) a bride. Shout-out to the few family members who have supported me in this, and special shout-out to this person beside me, Khaled, who has not only supported me unconditionally but also beamed at me with so much pride, for taking a stance against the stereotypes.”
This is an excerpt from the public post a beautiful Bangladeshi Bride made in the month of August this year. Not very sure if it got its fair share of attention, I’m here to mention more important things regarding this. I have purposefully chosen to not mention the background or the name of the woman because in this piece, it is of least importance. However if it is important to you, it is public, and you can always Google it.
A wedding has risen from being a ritual to a full fledged industry now. You can spot more and more magazines talking, endorsing and publicising how to look your best on your wedding day. And though it’s as necessary as you might think it is, given the legit emotional value one has regarding her wedding; are we hundred percent sure that the industry we follow so enthusiastically is REALLY asking a bride to look HER best at her D-day ?
Well, not really.
Because it is doing nothing but forcing, or at least pressurising the bride to doll up (and spend a fortune) on the makeup and dressing for one particular event. Also, what is it with generalising and giving one module for all of the brides to fit in?
Minor question- does the bridal industry have equipment that have predefined quality check lists?
Not only does it define the outlook of the ideal bride, but it also defines the parameters of who a socially acceptable bride is. Like if you’re a no-heavy-earring kinda person, there is no way you should let go of expensive stone-weight earrings on your wedding. What are you even thinking? I mean, you are not yourself on your wedding, yet you’re the ideal bride. Also it’s better to have no ears (or bleeding or painful ears) than to be your authentic self on your wedding. Pretty obvious.
The point is not labelling the hyped bridal look wrong. You’re free to dive into all of that if you feel like it. But, if there’s anytime you feel pressured to look like someone you’re really not, on your most important day, you need to stop right there. The universal parameters of beauty are void, and so is the checklist of the overpriced bridal package of that parlour. Though you needn’t be a rebel and go no makeup, no jewellery for your wedding day, but surely you should look how you want to be. Any parameter that discourages a woman (or even a man) to look her/his authentic self on the wedding has no legit reason to even exist.
This is really saddening that we encourage such advertisements, blogs, shops, parlours, etc. who sell an image for a bride or a groom to impersonate when it’s entirely their own day. We kinda have a thing for accepting things faster than we apply our minds to it. Why is it so that a bride has to have loads of whitening creams and kilograms of jewels and a really heavy dress to be a socially acceptable bride, or in shallow cases- a beautiful enough bride? Probably the checklist for looking your best needs some amendments.
However, it’s really satisfying to see that there are women who notice that they’re being dragged into this marsh, and choose to escape it. And we all can and will, one woman at a time.
The only statement to swear by is – look yourself and feel beautiful. And in that endeavour, you can be anyone you want to be.
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