Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/185541
Sparkling gold jewellery adorned the bride from head to toe. Rahim and Harpreet's Ismaili ceremony included the traditional breaking of the clay "saapatia." "The longer you keep the paste on, the darker it gets," Harpreet explains. "You can use lemon juice and sugar to enhance the colour and, because I wanted it to be very pronounced, I put [Vicks] VapoRub on and slept with plastic bags on my hands and feet." The first ceremony, at the Akali Singh Sikh Society temple in Vancouver, featured prayers, hymns and four trips around the Sikh Holy Scripture, symbolizing the various stages of marriage. Harpreet wore a stunning red lengha and Rahim, following Sikh tradition, sported a beard. Photos followed, while guests gathered at the bride's family home for a barbecue. The next day, Harpreet recalls, she felt relaxed as she prepared for her Ismaili nuptials. "I wasn't as nervous . . . but it still hadn't fully set in that Rahim and I were married," she says. "With so much going on, we really hadn't spent much time together, and the whole 'marriage' part didn't feel real yet." For their more modern Ismaili ceremony at Burnaby's Ismaili Centre, the bride donned a fitted ivory gown with a vintage feel. An elegant lace fascinator completed the look. Rahim, a lawyer with a sense of humour, wore multi-coloured socks with his three-piece Indochino suit. Now freshly shaven, he watched Harpreet walk toward him down the aisle. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous," he laughs. "It didn't sink in for me that we were married, either, until Sunday, when it was all over." After the vows were exchanged, the couple's 230 guests gathered at downtown Vancouver's Law Courts Inn, where the spacious Great Hall had been decorated with simple and creative elegance in blue and gold. The realweddings.ca p28-33_Harpreet & Rahim.indd 31 31 13-09-23 11:03 AM