Something Old, Something New

From setting the seven “S” items for Nowruz (Persian New Year) to arranging dolls for Navratri (Hindu goddess festival), both Indian and Persian cultures are rich in symbolic customs and traditions established thousands of years ago. Everything from not standing with your arms crossed to accepting things only with your right hand to touching elders’ feet for blessings is outlined in an invisible social rulebook. There’s a line in the book “The Stationary Shop” by Marjan Kamali that eloquently depicts this aspect of Eastern cultures, “She wished she knew the rules in this country [America]. Sometimes there didn’t seem to be any rules. It had been far easier in Iran, where tradition and tarof and who your grandfather was often dictated how to behave.” These rules might come second nature to people who grow up in an environment where everyone unanimously follows them, but as the book describes, growing up in a country like America whose core values are liberty and individualism, I often felt a clash between the structured social expectations of my Indian background and the instinct to do what makes sense for me personally. Throughout various stages of my life, my parents and I have had our disagreements seeing eye to eye on things like my career path, moving out to live alone, and of course, marrying out of my culture because despite how tightly they try to hold on to the Indian norms they’re accustomed to, it’s difficult for me to share their priorities when I wasn’t raised with the same perspective.

This friction became most obvious during wedding planning when my parents insisted on replicating traditions exactly as they would take place in India. I’m not a fan of big weddings and always saw myself having an intimate home ceremony, but ultimately our wedding wasn’t only for us. We wanted to respect our families’ wishes as well. Once we started planning however, we faced one hurdle after another: dates and times had to be planned around auspicious timing not convenience, specific family members had roles in the ceremony regardless whether we had a relationship with them or not, the bride’s side and grooms side had preset responsibilities even if they weren’t even from the same culture. Every time I tried to understand the reasoning behind these rules, the response would be “That’s how it is. It’s been that way for years.” We started to question whether this wedding had anything to do with us or if it was just a checklist of traditions that date back thousands of years with no real relevance anymore. I was looking forward to representing our cultures but any excitement was quickly getting overshadowed by the resentment of having to put all these expectations over our wishes. Instead of the pre-wedding glow, a sort of a pre-wedding depression took over me: fed up with trying to accommodate everything with limited budget and time, I started losing weight and breaking out. All we truly cared about was starting our life together but that seemed to be the lowest priority in this whole ordeal.

In the early days of our story, when we were just friends but Miad was big flirt, one day I had made the comment, “I would marry anyone who proposes to me in Paris” (Learning french and visiting Paris was a slight obsession I had at this time). Miad theatrically took a post it note from his backpack and made a show of writing “To do in the distant future: propose to Sahaana in Paris.” I rolled my eyes and laughed, but fully expected the note to end up on the bottom of a trashcan in Miad’s dorm. Eventually we surprised everyone (mostly ourselves) by getting together at the end of college and the rest is history.

Years later when we actually started talking about getting engaged, the COVID-19 pandemic was still in effect and we had just started new jobs after moving to LA, so even though a proposal in Paris had been a running joke for years, I knew it wasn’t realistic. One evening, under the pretense of a fancy dinner reservation in Malibu, Miad got me to dress up to go to the beach. Little did I know this was just a ruse to bring me to a sandcastle he had commissioned to be built in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. I was still processing his words, “since I couldn’t take you to Paris, I brought Paris to you”, when he went down on one knee and proposed with not just a ring but the post it note from 7 years earlier.

So when the opportunity to visit Paris came up right around a year after our engagement, we didn’t want to miss the chance since this city wound up having a lot of significance in our story. As the trip approached, wedding planning continued to snowball out of control in parallel and we kept commenting “maybe we should just elope and scrap this whole thing.” I had gotten to Paris a couple days earlier than Miad due to our work schedules and before he was set to leave, Miad called to let me know our wedding rings, which we had selected a few weeks before, were ready for pick up early. We both paused, thinking the same thing. “Should I bring them?” he asked. “Yes. Let’s do this the way we always wanted to.” I decided impulsively. Before we could talk ourselves out of it, I found a photographer, a quiet spot with a view, and bought anything else we needed.

On a misty and overcast morning of February 16, under a bridge along the Seine, we said our personal vows and exchanged rings. Afterwards, we lit a candle in a church and enjoyed croissants and espresso with a view of the Eiffel Tower. Our little elopement didn’t hold legal validity, it was probably not an “auspicious time”, and it definitely violated a thousand cultural rules, but it fulfilled the one thing we truly wanted from our wedding - a commitment to each other without external pressure or scrutiny. Once we returned home and continued wedding planning and navigating through all the challenges, we now had a newfound sense of peace, knowing that we’d always have Paris.

In the end, our actual wedding turned out to be blast since we somehow managed to execute on all the traditions and I’ll even admit that as special as our day in Paris was, there was something about the unique energy celebrating our relationship with people from all aspects of your life and things didn’t feel complete without Miad tying the wedding necklace around my neck either. We’ve had the pleasure of being involved in all sorts of weddings (having friends from all different backgrounds is one of the perks of growing up in a diverse location) and while every ceremony was unique, it’s impossible to say one is more likely to guarantee a successful marriage than another. One culture might say wearing white is the way to go whereas another says the same thing is unlucky - who’s to say what’s “correct” when conflicting customs could lead to happiness? We’re both proud of our backgrounds, but sometimes our cultures can get carried away imposing customs regardless of whether they’re still relevant today. While it’s important to preserve tradition, it’s equally important to understand why we’re doing something and if the only reason is “that’s how it’s always been”, maybe we should reconsider whether it’s worth keeping - or if it’s time to create our own new traditions.