Rice, Rings and Relatives

Weddings and the traditions that refuse to die

Hamza Qureshi2 episodes2 min of audio67 playsEpisodic

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S1 · E2Aug 30, 20260:5443 plays Preview

Two Families, Two Religions, One Hall in Birmingham

When Priya and Yusuf married, their families had to agree on a ceremony neither had seen before. They walk Hamza through every negotiation, from the menu to the music to who sits where.

S1 · E1Mar 14, 20260:5124 plays Members

The Dhol Player Who Has Never Missed a Baraat

Ustad Bashir has drummed at Lahore weddings for thirty-eight years. He explains the beats, the tips, the rivalries, and why he can tell within ten minutes whether a marriage will last.

About the show

Hamza Qureshi has photographed more than four hundred weddings in Lahore, Dubai, Birmingham and Toronto, and he has seen every tradition you can imagine, plus several that were invented on the day. Rice, Rings and Relatives is his weekly conversation about the rituals that surround marriage around the world and the families who guard them, bend them or quietly drop them. Each thirty-minute episode pairs Hamza with one guest, a bride, a groom, a mother-in-law, a dhol player, a Yoruba alaga, a Greek priest, a Vietnamese tea ceremony elder, a Punjabi caterer who has fed a hundred thousand guests. They talk about what the tradition means, what it costs, who argues about it and what happens when two families with different rules meet in one hall. Hamza is warm, nosy and extremely well informed about biryani portions. For anyone planning a wedding, surviving one, or wondering why their aunt insisted on the thing with the coins.

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