Although fines and punishments exist, laws on child marriage have little impact as they are not well enforced. In Sindh, it is illegal for those under 18 to marry, whereas according to national law, the legal minimum age is 16.

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In mayon, oil and turmeric are applied to the bride’s face and hands to make her look pale and bland; she is also made to wear yellow – all this designed to make her look especially attractive and glowing on the day of the mehndi (in some cases this transformation is reserved for the baraat).

Apparently its because they want to appear modest, shy, prim and of course in Asian tradition a wedding is a sad day for the bride because she is leaving her parents house for her husbands. So if a bride is laughing and joking on the day she is leaving her parents then it becomes the talk of the town.

Wedding. A typical Pakistani wedding, or Shaadi (شادی) consists of two main events – the Nikkah and Walima. Arranged and semi-arranged marriages in Pakistan often take long periods of time to finalize and up to a year or more can elapse from the day of engagement until the wedding ceremony.

Walima is essentially interchangeable with American and English terms such as: wedding reception or celebration (when held to celebrate a marriage), birthday party (when held to celebrate the birth of a newborn), or housewarming party (when held to celebrate the purchase of a new home).

Nikah. The marriage contract is signed in a nikah ceremony, in which the groom or his representative proposes to the bride in front of at least two witnesses, stating the details of the meher. Then the couple and two male witnesses sign the contract, making the marriage legal according to civil and religious law.

In Islamic law, marriage – or more specifically, the marriage contract – is called nikah, an Arabic word whose original literal meaning was “sexual intercourse”, but which already in the Quran is used exclusively to refer to the contract of marriage.