[princesszz]

skamed said:

Great thread!

Here's mine:

So I was at a conference. It was an awesome conference. Then I saw her and I knew. I said "marry me." She said "yes."












...and then I woke up...

hey bro,
try my version..it's more real. (atleast...i see him every year!)
it's also at a conference! may be when yours says 'kabool' to you..we'll show them these two posts.

[ChotooMotoo]

skamed said:

Great thread!

Here's mine:

So I was at a conference. It was an awesome conference. Then I saw her and I knew. I said "marry me." She said "yes."



...and then I woke up...

princesszz said:

hey bro,
try my version..it's more real. (atleast...i see him every year!)
it's also at a conference! may be when yours says 'kabool' to you..we'll show them these two posts.

OMG skammed and princesszz are secretly in love with each other and proposing to each other in their dreams it's a match made in virtual reality

[sally]

Sugarberry said:

wow ....I have no words... ive never heard of more horrible proposal story....hopefully your wife doesn't check islamica.

Umm, that's actually pretty common amongst Desi's and it's not considered horrible by our standards at all? Elders from the girls side discuss things including her feedback, and the guys side does the same (after both families meet each other). Then whatever they agree upon w/ that feedback, they share with each other over the phone. That's pretty much how most of our proposals are finalized, and it doesn't matter how you met. I don't see anything wrong with it when that's just how things go down for us.

If a guy and girl have known each other prior to their parents getting to know each other, then yeah the guy can do the proposal thing w/ her but generally they want to wait til the parents approval and only verbally agree upon things amongst themselves til they can get that. And then after everythings good on the parental end, they can still do an official proposal thing if they want.

[princesszz]

ChotooMotoo said:

OMG skammed and princesszz are secretly in love with each other and proposing to each other in their dreams it's a match made in virtual reality

you're such a typical rishta aunty--yet quite blunt too. :faint:

[RestlessSoul]

princesszz said:

if the engagement parties aren't relative..and if the baat is already pakki..then, how about even at a 'next big social dinner' where most of your fam and hers will be present? or if there's no big event..just at the next family barbeque. (but try to make the setting-a bit more festive--decorate the living room/outside..then ask everyone that u have a special announcement to make--probably after the dinner--dessert time?) ...once, everyone has gathered around..then pause..make everyone around your witness..by getting everyone's attention.. kneel down on your knee.... and voila. propose..and offer the ring..and a corny couplet wouldn't hurt either. girls are mushy. you know!

that's a great idea. instead of putting the ring in a champaigne glass, i'll put it in the barbequed chicken tikka.

xoxo said:

actually the engagement party or "mangni" is traditional, my parents tell me that it's been something ppl have being doing since forever...for ppl that have one, it follows the initial meetings and baat pakki (baat pakki is usually when you have the acceptance, and as mentioned by sumi, you could just give her the ring then). huge engagement parties at catering halls are somewhat more "western" i think, back home ppl usually have this type of thing done at the girl's house.

sumi said:

if there isn't an engagement party, there is probably at least some sort of baat pakki event where its "official" that they are engaged. so i would think you could give her the engagement ring at the baat pakki?

xoxo said:

my relatives in pakistan had their engagement parties, mehndis, and mayuns at home, while the nikkah and walimah were at halls. actually a few cousins even had their nikkah at home, then a reception from the bride's family on the same day, and another one from the groom's family later on.

we did go to their house with gifts after the "baat pakki" but it wasn't set up like an engagement party, meaning no planned ring exchanging ceremony or anything....so I missed the boat

MossadConspiracy said:

traditionally, the first thing we do is put on the bands at the time of the engagement, but you wear them on the right hand. Then when the marriage contract is signed the girl is given a diamond ring. After that, we have the real wedding and then the bands are put on the left hand.

sounds almost like moving the tassel to the other side when graduating. pretty interesting at the unique ways this is handled by different cultures.

[HijabiPrincezz]

Fiance came over with parents to ask for my hand in marriage after him and both sets of parents had been talking back and forth for about 4 months over phone. They came for two days, impressed my parents, and day 2 of their visit somehow turned into a baat pakee (completely unplanned), where mithai was stuffed into our mouths and all family members were invited to stuff our faces one by one. A year later he put a ring on it (or well, his momma did), and he's going to put another ring (wedding band) on it this summer, inshallah.

Pretty simple.

[SugarB]

sally said:

Umm, that's actually pretty common amongst Desi's and it's not considered horrible by our standards at all? Elders from the girls side discuss things including her feedback, and the guys side does the same (after both families meet each other). Then whatever they agree upon w/ that feedback, they share with each other over the phone. That's pretty much how most of our proposals are finalized, and it doesn't matter how you met. I don't see anything wrong with it when that's just how things go down for us.

If a guy and girl have known each other prior to their parents getting to know each other, then yeah the guy can do the proposal thing w/ her but generally they want to wait til the parents approval and only verbally agree upon things amongst themselves til they can get that. And then after everythings good on the parental end, they can still do an official proposal thing if they want.

didnt mean to offend u just didnt realize how much the parents were involved in the desi proposal process ...especially to the point where actual decision to marry a girl/or ask the girl to get married is made by the parents...I mean i knew it happened in old times...but i didnt think it was actually still happening..in america...seems foreign to me...but I guess that goes to show that ..islamica is always surprising me

[Khairan]

Sugarberry said:

wow ....I have no words... ive never heard of more horrible proposal story....hopefully your wife doesn't check islamica.

Why would it matter? The same thing happened to her!

[HijabiPrincezz]

Quote

didnt mean to offend u just didnt realize how much the parents were involved in the desi proposal process ...especially to the point where actual decision to marry a girl/or ask the girl to get married is made by the parents...I mean i knew it happened in old times...but i didnt think it was actually still happening..in america...seems foreign to me...but I guess that goes to show that ..islamica is always surprising me
_______

If both the girl and the guy have known one another from before for awhile and have been talking to each other, most times the guy might ask her if she's interested in marrying him before pursuing her parents. That can be said in many ways and some guys might choose the good old "will you marry me" route while others might want to wait it out and ask the official question with the girl's parent's blessings, which I've seen occur in many non-desi homes, as well. It's more out of respect for her parents than anything else, I suppose. Plus, the parents like to get to know one another and each other's families before pursuing anything and officially saying (directly or indirectly) "so we like you! and you like each other! sooo you guys have our blessing to get married!" It only makes sense since you're practically merging two families into one.

[EirinnMoChroi]

princesszz said:

so..

one night..princesszz was getting all teh fails. then the only person who understood her 'thankyou worthy post'..was IrishMuslimah..the princesszz thought..that was it. before irish can change her mind about princesszz..pz proposed to im. and ....



(sorry for the lameness of this folow up post. im procastinating big time so anything to keep me away from writing my papers )

Im a taken woman, Princezz.... Insha'Allah soon you will find another lovely lady who will thank your posts soon.

[SugarB]

HijabiPrincezz said:

If both the girl and the guy have known one another from before for awhile and have been talking to each other, most times the guy might ask her if she's interested in marrying him before pursuing her parents. That can be said in many ways and some guys might choose the good old "will you marry me" route while others might want to wait it out and ask the official question with the girl's parent's blessings, which I've seen occur in many non-desi homes, as well. It's more out of respect for her parents than anything else, I suppose. Plus, the parents like to get to know one another and each other's families before pursuing anything and officially saying (directly or indirectly) "so we like you! and you like each other! sooo you guys have our blessing to get married!" It only makes sense since you're practically merging two families into one.

I get the getting consent from the parents ( which is obviously the islamic aspect of it).....I was just surprised that the "actual" proposal (where the guy ask the girl to marry him) was not done by the guy himself...and left to the parents. different strokes for different folks.

In anycase islamica dosent seem to have that many cute proposal stories ....luckily I found a site that does lol!

[marjanih]

He's the older step-brother of the kids I nanny for. I met him and had small passing chat for maybe three days when I went up to nanny for the kids in NY over the summer. I came back up a few weeks later just to visit with the kids. I took them to Chuck E Cheese, where he met us there. We decided to go out that night, but with his female aunts & cousins [who are our ages] too, whom I also befriended while up there. All day he kept saying that he wasn't able to get in contact with them. Apparently, the aunts and cousins when MIA for the day. I was like ummm oki? So we still ended up going out that night. On our way out his step-mom and her sister were like, Oh have a great time guys!...Have fun!...Enjoy!...Have a fun time!...etc. etc. etc. I was like again, ummm oki? So we went out to NYC to this little hookah joint. Struck up small conversation about what he's doing with his life and that's when homeboy came out with the likes of, "I'm going to be successful. I'm going to have a successful life and I see you in it. I see you being by my side. I see you as my wife. I'm going to marry you." At this point I was like is this boy serious?!?! I rambled on as to why he shouldn't like me no less want to marry me but nothing I said phased him.

We left a couple hours later and ended up getting lost in NY for 7hrs. Yes, 7 hrs. From NYC, to Queens, to Harlem, to NYC, then finally back to Brooklyn. So 7hrs gave us plenty of time to talk- by the end I was really feeling him.

But damn was I scared to bring him back to his step-moms house. We opened up the door and there was his step-mom and her mother just sitting there looking at us. I could have died of embarrassment. I was stumbling over my words and trying to get them to believe me when I said that we were truly lost for 7hrs.

A couple months later, coming back from me meeting his mother, he got out the car and asked if I'd step out too. He got down on one knee and officially proposed.


shadha-

[kababqueen]

shadha, that is an adorable story mA!!! may Allah fill your lives with every happiness and always keep your family under His protection. Ameen

my husband and I met on the train...he saw me from across the car while I was totally oblivious to him, absorbed in one of the many "I don't need a man" self-help books that I was reading at the time. Anyways his stop came, he got off, then changed his mind and jumped back on before the doors closed...he rode all the way to the end of the line to my stop and when I got off the train and was walking home, he said salam to me...I turned around to see who was talking to me, and it was this handsome man who introduced himself and then asked if he could just have my email address...I'm like listen, I don't wanna vote for Obama, I don't care about the environment right now and I'm not interested in gay rights...he looked shocked and embarassed. He said that it was so that he could get to know me in a more appropriate way, and then I immediately knew what he was talking about. It was my turn to be embarassed. So I gave him my student email account which I never check, in case he turned out to be a total creeper.

The next day he emailed me saying that he was looking to get married and would like to me to tell my parents before we actually got to know one another better. I told my mom and she was excited and said he might be the one, my father was a bit apprehensive, saying that ppl meeting on the train was a sign of the end of the world lol. which is ironic b/c my parents met on a bus back home!

Anyways we exchanged emails for about a month or two, and then I met him with my brother a few times as well...he came to meet my parents shortly afterwards (my dad met him and actually liked him a lot), and then his family came to meet ours a few times...both parties were happy and gave us their blessings, so after that, he asked me to marry him via AIM...I said yes and the rest is history. We met in Feb 08, got engaged in June 08, and got married in October of the same year alhumdulillah that's gonna be one cool story to tell our kids iA lol.

[sumi]

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww such cute stories mA

lowe.

[sally]

Aww, yeah masha'Allah very cute stories!

I still remember the day xoxo called me to tell me, "So, OMG I was on the train...and so was this guy and you won't believe what happened.." hahahahaha

Sugarberry said:

didnt mean to offend u just didnt realize how much the parents were involved in the desi proposal process ...especially to the point where actual decision to marry a girl/or ask the girl to get married is made by the parents...I mean i knew it happened in old times...but i didnt think it was actually still happening..in america...seems foreign to me...but I guess that goes to show that ..islamica is always surprising me

Sugarberry said:

I get the getting consent from the parents ( which is obviously the islamic aspect of it).....I was just surprised that the "actual" proposal (where the guy ask the girl to marry him) was not done by the guy himself...and left to the parents. different strokes for different folks.

In anycase islamica dosent seem to have that many cute proposal stories ....luckily I found a site that does lol!

It's all good. I just don't understand why people expect that just because we're Americans and live here now that our entire way of doing things should change to signify some sort of progress. We're still part of a different culture and remnants of it are still ingrained in our life here. While things have changed somewhat in that our parents for the most part don't expect us to lack backbones or the power to make a choice, you have to remember that marriage rituals and etc make up a huge chunk of cultural practices etc. Parts of it will never fully fade away and our aim isn't to change enough to fit the mass society's standard and way of doing things. I'm sure you know just how strong the impact of culture can be having studied African American history and what not. And how much stronger people want to cling on to it sometimes when the threat of losing it in a diverse society is realized.

[Salika]

RestlessSoul said:

engagement parties aren't traditional though right? I thought mainly first you have the rishta, then a couple meetings for the families to talk it over and get to know each other, and then finally the acceptance (over the phone or something). From there just proceed to planning the wedding. aren't engagement parties something relatively new to the scene and mainly only done here in the west?

and if no engagement party, then when do you give the ring and/or wedding band?

Fyi: I'm Syrian. Syrians do have engagement parties but the "engagement" includes the nikkah

[MossadConspiracy]

shadha said:

He's the older step-brother of the kids I nanny for. I met him and had small passing chat for maybe three days when I went up to nanny for the kids in NY over the summer. I came back up a few weeks later just to visit with the kids. I took them to Chuck E Cheese, where he met us there. We decided to go out that night, but with his female aunts & cousins [who are our ages] too, whom I also befriended while up there. All day he kept saying that he wasn't able to get in contact with them. Apparently, the aunts and cousins when MIA for the day. I was like ummm oki? So we still ended up going out that night. On our way out his step-mom and her sister were like, Oh have a great time guys!...Have fun!...Enjoy!...Have a fun time!...etc. etc. etc. I was like again, ummm oki? So we went out to NYC to this little hookah joint. Struck up small conversation about what he's doing with his life and that's when homeboy came out with the likes of, "I'm going to be successful. I'm going to have a successful life and I see you in it. I see you being by my side. I see you as my wife. I'm going to marry you." At this point I was like is this boy serious?!?! I rambled on as to why he shouldn't like me no less want to marry me but nothing I said phased him.

We left a couple hours later and ended up getting lost in NY for 7hrs. Yes, 7 hrs. From NYC, to Queens, to Harlem, to NYC, then finally back to Brooklyn. So 7hrs gave us plenty of time to talk- by the end I was really feeling him.

But damn was I scared to bring him back to his step-moms house. We opened up the door and there was his step-mom and her mother just sitting there looking at us. I could have died of embarrassment. I was stumbling over my words and trying to get them to believe me when I said that we were truly lost for 7hrs.

A couple months later, coming back from me meeting his mother, he got out the car and asked if I'd step out too. He got down on one knee and officially proposed.


shadha-

how did you get lost on the subway for 7 hrs?

[zzze]

I'm guessing she was driving?

[Anderson]

I employed a neuro-linguistic programming technique where I created a cognitive association between the words 'cheesecake' and 'marriage'..........





























































It didn't work.

[Mademoiselle]

Aww, some stories on here are so adorable

Mine was pretty simple and a little more straight forward. My husband and I have family friends in common that thought we may get along. We had an exchange of pictures/stats - shared with the family - and followed through with some emailing to get an idea of what the other wanted in terms of a spouse, marriage, and life goals. We meshed well, the families met a few times, and eventually it the 'baath' got settled, but there was no formal engagement. I say 'eventually' because we were introduced (so to speak) two years before things were finalized because random things kept delaying our parents on confirming. Being across the country does that I guess

As far as rings, I wasn't really into the idea because a) I didn't get brainwashed into thinking if I didn't have a ring, that something was missing from my life - I know for most girls that's not the case, but I just had to live with a disgruntled woman who stayed sulky until she got a rock from her fiance and I know I'm picky and wouldn't be able to decide and if he got anything for me, it would probably be something his mom/sister picked out. Since we didn't have a formal 'engagement' there was no engagement ring and I decided against a wedding ring because I hated the idea of $$$ being wasted on a rock on my finger when I know the $$$ could easily be used to get me a car when I moved, pay tuition, travel expenses, etc (which it was, alh). My MIL gave me a diamond for my 2yr anniversary so I wear that occasionally, more-so in places I know I'll be hollered at (in a roundabout as salamu alaikum, sister...what masjid do you go to kind of way)