My Sister’s Wedding: The Pretty, the Messy & Everything In Between

Dear Diary,

I genuinely don’t even know how to begin this post because somehow the wedding we had been talking about, planning for, stressing over, and counting down to for what felt like forever… actually happened.

Willow is officially married.

And somehow I survived three straight days of ceremonies, outfit changes, family chaos, alcohol, crying, dancing, sweating through approximately ten pounds of fabric, and enough emotional whiplash to last me the rest of the year.

So obviously, we need to talk about it.

DAY ONE: HALDI / HOLUD 💛

Wedding weekend started exactly how you would expect a giant family wedding to start: complete and utter chaos.

That morning, we were moving from the resort we had been staying at to the villa where all of the wedding events were being held. The problem was that we also had to be completely ready before leaving.

Hair done. Makeup done. Outfits on. Jewelry on. Bags packed. Everything moved.

It was… a lot.

At some point, one of Willow’s earrings went missing, which—as you can probably imagine when you’re dealing with a bride on the first day of her wedding events—did not go over particularly well.

She started freaking out, everyone started looking for it, and meanwhile literally everything else was running late too.

We were late.

Transportation was late.

The venue was behind.

The planners were behind.

It felt like every single person involved in this wedding had collectively decided that schedules were merely suggestions.

I think that morning took approximately five years off my life.

But the second we finally got to the villa, everything completely shifted.

All of the panic from that morning disappeared and suddenly it was like, Oh. We’re actually here. The wedding is happening.

We had the Haldi/Holud ceremony, which went really well despite the fact that it was HOT AS HELL.

And when I say hot, I mean standing outside fully dressed and glammed while wondering if my makeup was slowly melting off my face. 

Still, everyone was happy. We drank, we danced, we celebrated, and after all the chaos of the morning, it finally started feeling like a wedding instead of one giant logistical nightmare.

That night was the welcome party, and that might have been one of my favorite parts of the entire weekend.

I genuinely do not think I left the dance floor.

Once I started dancing, I basically stayed there for the rest of the night.

One thing that really stuck with me was how many people kept coming up to me throughout the night and telling me that they saw me as their little sister now.

People kept saying things like, “If you ever need anything, come to me.”

And I don’t know. There was something really sweet about hearing that over and over again.

Obviously Willow was gaining a husband and another family through this marriage, but in a weird way, it felt like I was gaining people too.

By the end of the first night, I was exhausted, sweaty, probably a little drunk, and ridiculously happy.

And somehow we still had two more days.

DAY TWO: ANAND KARAJ 🤍

The Anand Karaj was probably the ceremony that hit me the hardest emotionally.

For anyone unfamiliar, Anand Karaj is the traditional Sikh wedding ceremony, and it was absolutely beautiful.

Unfortunately, Italy apparently decided that wedding weekend was the perfect time to turn into the surface of the sun.

It was SO hot.

And both Willow and I were wearing these gorgeous, extremely heavy outfits, which looked amazing in pictures and felt significantly less amazing after sitting in the heat for hours. 

But honestly, I barely cared because I spent most of the ceremony crying anyway.

Like…

Not cute little single-tear crying.

I was CRYING crying.

And yes, Willow absolutely made fun of me for this later.

Listen. That is my sister!!!

I can make fun of her all day long, steal her clothes, annoy her, argue with her, and probably drive her insane, but watching your older sister actually get married is such a strange feeling.

This is someone who has been there for literally my entire life.

And suddenly I was watching this huge chapter of hers begin right in front of me. 

So yes, I cried.

A lot.

Everyone was having such a good time afterward, and for a while, the day felt perfect.

And then…

Things took a turn.

I’m not going to get into every detail because some family business does need to remain family business, but there was a massive argument later that day involving several members of my family.

And when I say massive, I mean massive.

My sister.

My mom.

My aunt.

My dad.

My uncle.

My brother-in-law.

Everyone was upset. Everyone was yelling. Everyone had their own version of what had happened and why they were angry.

At one point, my mom was literally packing her things and saying she was leaving the villa and wasn’t going to attend the Nikkah the next day.

Which, for context, was the Muslim ceremony.

Our side of the wedding.

So… yeah.

Not ideal.

I ended up defending Willow during the argument, which made my mom angry with me too.

By the end of the night, basically everyone involved had gone to bed angry at someone.

My mom wouldn’t even let me back into the room I had been sharing with my parents, so I ended up sleeping with the rest of the bridesmaids instead.

It was such a bizarre ending to what had started as such a beautiful day.

And I remember lying there thinking:

How did we go from everyone crying during a wedding ceremony to this?

DAY THREE: THE NIKKAH 🌙

The next morning, the bridesmaids and I woke up to yelling.

Not an alarm.

Not someone knocking on the door.

Yelling.

Which is exactly what you want to wake up to on the final day of a wedding week.

I immediately started trying to reassure everyone around me that things were going to be okay, even though I wasn’t entirely sure I believed that myself.

At one point, my brother-in-law stopped me from going into the room where everyone was arguing.

He basically told me that I didn’t need to see what was happening in there.

And looking back, I think he was trying to protect me from being pulled even further into something that was already way too emotionally intense.

That argument was bad enough that I genuinely think it permanently changed parts of our family dynamic.

There are some fights where everyone gets angry and eventually moves on.

This didn’t really feel like one of those.

I think eventually everyone silently came to the same conclusion:

We are finishing this wedding.

Whatever problems existed were going to have to wait.

And somehow, everyone pulled themselves together.

That evening, we had the Nikkah at sunset.

And it was beautiful.

Seriously.

After everything that had happened over the previous twenty-four hours, there was something almost surreal about watching everything become peaceful again, even temporarily.

But I could tell Willow was stressed.

I know my sister well enough to see it.

She was happy, obviously. She was getting married.

But there had been so much happening behind the scenes between the family drama, wedding logistics, exhaustion, heat, and everything else that comes with a huge destination wedding.

You could almost feel all of that stress sitting underneath the celebration.

And I think that’s something weddings don’t always show you.

You see the beautiful pictures afterward.

The dresses.

The flowers.

The venue.

The first dance.

The champagne.

What you don’t see is someone crying in a bedroom ten minutes earlier.

Someone trying to find missing jewelry.

Someone arguing with a family member.

Someone worrying about transportation.

Someone trying to keep the bride calm.

A wedding can be beautiful and stressful and emotional and messy all at the same time.

And ours definitely was.

THE SPEECH 🎤

And then came the moment I had been terrified of for weeks.

My speech.

I had been thinking about this speech constantly before the wedding.

Writing it.

Editing it.

Reading it.

Overthinking it.

Imagining myself completely embarrassing myself in front of over a hundred people.

So naturally, I dealt with my nerves in the most sophisticated and mature way possible:

I drank three glasses of wine.

Very quickly.

Suddenly public speaking seemed significantly less horrifying.

When it was finally my turn, I got up there and somehow started talking.

And then, unsurprisingly…

I cried.

Again.

Apparently crying was my main wedding activity.

Most of the speeches that night had been more funny and lighthearted, which I loved, but mine was definitely more sentimental.

I talked about Willow as my sister.

As my role model.

As the person I have always called first.

And somewhere in the middle of saying everything I wanted her to know, my voice cracked and I started crying.

Which then made other people cry.

Afterward, so many people came up to me and told me that mine was their favorite speech or that I had made them emotional.

And that genuinely meant so much to me.

Not because I wanted to have “the best” speech or anything like that.

I just really wanted Willow to understand how much she means to me.

There are things you feel about the people closest to you that you don’t actually say out loud very often.

Especially siblings.

Most of our communication is basically bullying each other and stealing things from each other.

So standing in front of everyone and actually saying, This person has shaped who I am felt incredibly vulnerable.

But I’m really glad I did it.

my best friend and i at the reception!

AND JUST LIKE THAT…

The wedding was over.

Three days.

Two marriage ceremonies.

A ridiculous amount of dancing.

Several glasses of wine.

Multiple emotional breakdowns.

Approximately seventeen million photos.

One family argument from hell.

And one officially married big sister.

Was the weekend perfect?

Absolutely not.

There were moments that were genuinely some of the happiest memories I’ve ever made, and there were other moments where I wanted to disappear into my room and pretend none of us were related.

But maybe that’s what makes the whole thing feel real to me.

It wasn’t this perfectly curated wedding montage.

It was our family.

Complicated, loud, emotional, loving, dramatic, chaotic.

And somehow, despite everything that happened behind the scenes, I still look back at the weekend and mostly remember watching my sister get married.

I remember dancing until my feet hurt.

I remember crying during the ceremony.

I remember people telling me I had gained a whole new group of older siblings.

I remember standing up with a microphone in my hand, slightly tipsy and extremely emotional, trying to explain how much Willow means to me.

And I remember looking at her and realizing that the wedding we had been talking about forever was suddenly almost over.

My sister got married.

Like… actually married.

I’m still not over it.

xoxo, Keke♡