Birthdays: Nature’s Way of Telling Us to Eat More Cake

A year (and 13 days ago) ago I started this blog. I was recently married, had friends around me getting married, was seeking inspiration, and had “wisdom” to impart. Hence, Inspirational Laddu was born. At the time it seemed like a great idea. The internet and more specifically the blogosphere didn’t have much inspiration to offer desi brides (with certain aesthetic sensibilities). Blogs like Style Me Pretty and 100 Layer Cake didn’t show me pretty brides in red lenghas, and photographers like Kohi Marri, Kashif Rashid, Sitwat & Insiya and Umair bin Nisar had barely begun snapping the photojournalistic wedding photos that I so love (with the exception of my own fab wedding photographer Hadi Habib ofcourse).

 

Now a wedding blog is not the first thing that people would associate with me. Those who know me, heck even I myself, sometimes do a double take at the fact that I.have.a.wedding.blog. What? Really?  The very least of the reasons behind this is my own love-hate relationship with weddings (and marriage). More on that later. But for now, suffice it to say (and I have said it before) I’m not your typical girly-whirly-head-over-feet-gushing-over-the-romance-and-fairytaleness-of-it-all girl. I’m not the girl who dreamt about her wedding since she was five. I’m the awkward one who had nightmares about her wedding (trust me they weren’t baseless).

So of all things, why a wedding blog?

Possible Reason #1: God has a sense of humour and so should you?

Possible Reason #2: Those who can’t do blog about it ?

Hmmm even the The Unbride  and The Offbeat Bride seem to buy into the spiel than I do…

Ok reading that last paragraph now I just sound like a cold-hearted, bitter b*tch. Shit. This post isn’t really going as expected. So here is the reason behind this post: You know how birthdays make us reflect on our lives, well IL’s birthday has made me reflect on its short and *sweet* life and on where it’s headed. In the past year since IL started, many (many) wonderful desi wedding blogs have cropped up. Some are written by professionals in the wedding biz, some want to be professional and others of course are true-blue wedding fanatics. I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t been been quite a year for IL, as well. From receiving much-needed (& appreciated) blog love and recognition from brides and bloggers and making some fantastic friends along the way, to magazine articles, attending my first event as an official ‘wedding blogger’ and more. However,  as much as I love to indulge me in some good old-fashioned wedding porn* (it’s a real term, I swear), I have found myself wondering: if others are finally filling the gap that I had once felt, and seem to be much better suited to the task, then what exactly am I still doing here?

Well, I thought about it and here’s what I came up with. I’m here because yes, I gush over photographs that ooze happiness but I will also acknowledge that weddings are hard! No they’re not just ‘hard work’ … they can be the hardest daymn thing that you take on in your young life. There’s a dark, awkward, and weird side to being a bride and once in a while between the breath-taking joras and the quotes about love, I will blog about that ugly side. About wrestling with the cultural demons surrounding weddings and marriages; and about figuring out how to be a bride and a wife on your own terms. And I really do love blogging, even though my (in)frequency of posts may suggest otherwise. I may not particularly care for weddings but I love people and their stories and  am suchhh a sucker for beautiful images. (Photographers: this is your cue to flood my inbox and make me happy. Thnks). You know what, maybe it doesn’t even have to be just about weddings because what I love is sharing with the little things that inspire me, move me, or simply make me think!

There you have it. My existential crisis for the year. Happy 1st Birthday Inspirational Laddu!!   

 

Pssst…. I heard that all IL wants for its birthday is for you to introduce it to your friends who will give it some love.

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