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Two Families, Two Religions, One Hall in Birmingham
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Show notes
Building a ceremony from scratch
Priya grew up Gujarati Hindu in Leicester. Yusuf grew up Pakistani Muslim in Bradford. When they decided to marry, both families said yes, and then the real work began. This episode follows the eleven months of negotiation that produced a wedding in a Birmingham hall that satisfied two grandmothers, one imam, one pandit and a caterer with strong opinions.
- The first meeting of the parents and what was said in the car afterwards
- A nikah in the morning and a pheras in the afternoon
- Menu diplomacy: halal, vegetarian and the paneer compromise
- Seating plans as peace treaties
- What both sets of grandparents said on the day, unprompted
Hamza photographed this wedding and admits he cried during the second ceremony.
Transcript
Hello and welcome back to Rice, Rings and Relatives. I am Hamza Qureshi. Today's episode is one I have wanted to make since the day I photographed it. Priya grew up in a Gujarati Hindu family in Leicester. Yusuf grew up in a Pakistani Muslim family in Bradford. Both families said yes to the marriage, which sounds like the end of the story, and was in fact the beginning of eleven months of negotiation about everything: which ceremony came first, what the imam and the pandit would each need, whether the menu could survive both halal and vegetarian, and a seating plan that Priya describes as a peace treaty. They walk me through all of it, including the conversation in the car after the parents met for the first time. I will admit now that I cried during the pheras. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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