Not another Sabyasachi bride
Tasmit Afiyat Arny, an art director and fashion designer by profession, got married last week. For her wedding ceremony, she designed attires that paid homage to Bangladeshi culture, and pictures of the event went viral on social media subsequently
If you were active on social media during the last week, there is a good chance you came across pictures from the Sabin-Arny holud.
Kicking off this year's wedding season in Dhaka, Tasmit Afiyat Arny, the bride, crafted an elaborate grand gesture to mark her special day.
Held on 4 November at Banani DOHS, the holud was one of a kind, where the bride made her grand entrance riding a white horse, and that too, wearing a striking lehenga that had rickshaw-plastic embroideries all over it.
Gone are the days when girls used to wait for their prince charming to impress them by riding a white horse.
Arny is a senior art director and fashion designer of her own brand Stride. Previously, she was employed as an art director at Asiatic MCL.
Sabin Hinton, the groom, is a US citizen and a US State Department official. Arny and Sabin met in November 2019 at the US Embassy in Dhaka.
"I wanted to make my wedding a real example of my vision to express my ideas. My vision and ideology in life is entirely different from others.The more I wanted to be myself, the more people labelled me a feminist and a lunatic," she said.
A Dhaka University graduate, Arny is a strong-willed promoter of Bangladeshi culture. She refused to wear any Indian designer brand's wedding trousseau.
"I wanted to be a proud Bangalee bride, so I designed my lehenga with pure rickshaw plastic embroidered with rickshaw motifs. There is no shame in being an unconventional Bangalee bride," she told The Business Standard.
Rickshaw paint and jamdani have always been Arny's strongest forte, which she highlighted on international stages several times.
In 2019, Shireen Sheela appeared at Miss Universe 2019 in Georgia, US, draped in a jamdani saree with a rickshaw hood and alphabet jewellery. All those were designed by Arny.
Moreover, Arny designed her wedding invitation card with seed paper.
"People can easily use the invitation card to plant trees. My husband's outfit is pure jamdani; even my guests wore rickshaw-painted fabric [at the holud] that has Sabin and my face on it. Everyone appreciated these creative attires designed by me," she further added.
A sizable number of wedding guests were foreigners. Hence, Arny aspired to demonstrate real Bangladeshi culture at her holud.
On 11 November, the reception of this celebrated couple took place at the capital's Mohammadpur area. The reception also paid homage to Bangladeshi culture. The venue was full of local food stalls, including fuchka, sugarcane drinks, etc.
The bride wore a white lehenga-styled gown, full of flares, detailed with jewellery. On the other hand, the groom wore a navy blue prince coat with golden embroidery.
"My husband always dreamt of his wife in a white gown, and I had to make that dream come true. But, keeping our own heritage in mind, I chose jamdani fabric," Arny concluded.
