I know that weddings in Pakistan are a jungle. The clothes, the jewelry, the makeup, the shoes lol. It’s harder for people like us that are abroad and don’t have the experience of wedding shopping at all. I mean, friends weddings come up all the time and you somehow get a good idea of how to arrange things, but when you’re totally cut off from that bit as well, it seems like a puzzle even picking out a dress. I thought I would help you guys on the way and give my best tips on where and how to do your baraat dress shopping! It’s not easy, lol I agree with that, but it’s not impossible either!

Let’s jump right into it and discuss the most important part of a wedding—your wedding dress! Weddings in Pakistan are usually a three-day function; mendhi, baraat & walima, but I know people that do a small nikah and jump right into walima as well. It’s entirely up to you and your resources! The hunt after a wedding dress begins several months before the wedding. It’s not only about picking out something you like, but you have to have the right color, stitching, cut, embroidery—you name it. Now, as I mentioned earlier it’s very hard for us girls living abroad. We have no shops to visit, no earlier experience and 99% of the time; no idea what kind of dress we want either lol. There’s so many trends going on in Pakistan at the same time that you literally get lost! So my best tip is to choose whether you want to look like a traditional or trendy bride.

TRADITIONAL OR TRENDY?

I had a very clear idea of me looking like the traditional bride with a jhoomar, nath and a blood red wedding dress, but I changed my mind the last second. I think it’s very healthy for couples to discuss beforehand about how they want to look etc. My idea of the traditional bride was a red dress and that’s it, but after discussing it back and forth we came to the conclusion that going with a champagne color with a hint of red details would look so much better! So I chose a beautiful champagne/bronze dress with small maroon details on it. The lehenga underneath was paired with a beautiful peplum shirt and a heavy bordered dupatta. Such a beautiful combination!

Here alot of different styles come in as well. A few years back it was very trendy with a long shirt with “chawks” on the side, paired with a lehenga. Then all of a sudden mini tops came in, the half-sleeves, the froks, the maxis—you name it. The best is to decide what looks best on you. Are you tall enough for a long shirt? Make a sketch of how you want to look on your big day and Pinterest it for more help!

BRIDAL DRESS SHOPPING?

I get tons of messages everyday of people asking me where they should do their bridal dress shopping. I’m not a professional and I only have experience from my own wedding, but I’ve heard a lot about the bazaar in Lahore. Lahore is always best for bridal shopping, whether it’s for mendhi, baraat or walima! So do go there and have a look! Although, since it’s Lahore, it’s very pricey as well. It also depends on whether you want a designer bridal dress or just something you can customize yourself. So again; scribble down what you’re looking for. It’s SO hard if you jump into it without pre-planning. You will get lost in the jungle of millions of styles and colors.

Now, when it comes to the shops, I only have experience with two different ones, located in two different cities, that sell two entirely different style of bridal gowns, to two entirely different customers. It would be very unfair of me to compare these two, as the first one, Mohsin & Sons is located in the heart of Islamabad, and the other is in Gujrat. They’re simply working with two different kind of people visiting them!

Mohsin & Sons is located in Islamabad and sell very high quality work. It’s such a pity that they don’t have an active working instagram/facebook page where they can showcase their dresses, cause I’m so sure they would get triple as much customers running in and out if they managed that! Social media is everything in the 21^st century! Anyway, their service is really good and the employees working there take you seriously, whilst giving their own opinion at the same time. We had the luck of talking to the head of the store which gave us his honest opinion whilst discussing our own ideas, but I’m sure the other ones working there are really really talented as well. I don’t have anything bad to say about them, other than the most important thing; stitching. The lady they have in charge for the measurements have no idea what she’s doing and is very rude. I have no idea if that’s something they’re out looking for in Pakistan—rude employees—but it’s such a turn off! Other than that I can’t recall anything that was bad about them, so I highly recommend that store! This is not for designer bridal gowns, but their work is very high quality and good if you have a budget to hold.

The other store is located in Gujrat called Qari Cloth House. My family have been visiting this store for almost 10 years now and they sell everything from bridal dresses to branded suits and casual shalwaar kameez. I must admit, majority of their work is that typical “gujrati-kaam” but if you really dig in and search for the right dress, you will not be disappointed. I found my bridal dress from here due to the lack of time, and since my tailor is located in Rawal Pindi, I had to get my dress stitched from here as well. The dress is with a peplum shirt and a lehenga with tail. A heavy embroidery dupatta and the perfect shining fabric underneath the net so it gives a “bridal” look to it even more. As I mentioned earlier; I won’t compare their service and work with Mohsin & Sons, cause this one is for the people living in Gujrat, but I had major problems with the stitching here as well. Very irresponsible when measuring, which left me with weird looking sleeves that fell on my dupatta all day long. BUT, you have to keep in mind that I went there and found a dress in a week. Not all stores say yes to deliver a full bridal glam dress within a week! So heads up for that!

My best tip is to have an eye on Pinterest a year before the wedding. Make a board on there or something and pin everything you like! Print out the pictures you like the most; can be containing the b-neck you love, the type of sleeves you want to get sewed on your dress or whatever, and bring them with you to Pakistan. It’s sooo much easier with a clear idea that you can show the shopkeeper as well. This way you won’t be misunderstood! It’s a nightmare wearing a total catastrophe on your big day! So preplanning is the key!

Unfortunately, I have no experience with designer bridal dresses, as I didn’t get one for myself. I would also like to not recommend trusting instagram pages. I know a lot of girls that have ordered dresses online just to get scammed. Other times you don’t get scammed but the fabric and color differs so much from what you’ve seen online, that all of the money you spent on it, just go to waste. So go to Pakistan and have a look there! England is very far ahead with bridal dresses as well—but then again; very expensive!

Next time we will talk about my jewelry and makeup on my baraat day! Hope this post helped you in your hunt for your bridal dress. Much love xoxo

Alot of you guys have been asking me about my butterfly wall in my room, and I think I had a mini tutorial on this when I first got the idea and made it happen. But since all those posts are gone, I thought I would make another more detailed post about this! I am such a sucker for wall-decor, I just can’t deal with an empty wall! I need a lot of pictures on there (no clutter though), something that just shows Momna! Serena’s room in Gossip Girl has always fascinated me, even though I’ve never been a loyal follower of the series. I was starstruck when I first saw it and when I was brainstorming what to do in here, I got this idea of recreating the whole thing and just skipping the black color!

Now, Serena’s room is HUGE lol and I only wanted this on the wall above my bed, which meant that the design went a bit smaller than I had thought. I still think of “expanding” it to fill the whole wall but I don’t know.. I’m scared it’ll give a “dirty” look to it lol.

SO! I researched a lot about the butterflies and had thoughts of making this on cardstock paper. Then I remembered that I had seen these beautiful 3D mirror butterflies on ebay and knew instantly that I had to bring this to my wall! Every package contained 12 butterflies, in different sizes, and I think I ordered around 10! You have to remember that the butterflies are in different sizes, so even though you have a lot of them, you still have to pair them right!

I started with the design without drawing anything on wall. I know that a lot of people like to have it perfectly symmetrical, but I seriously couldn’t be bothered. Some things just aren’t mean to be perfectly perfect all the time! Included in the package was small adhesive-tapes as well and I thought “Oh! This just got so much easier!”. First night went by and I woke up with 5 different butterflies in my hair that had fallen of the wall haha! So I went on and found my gluegun! Just a reminder though; A gluegun is something that is NOT meant to be used everywhere. If you live in an apartment that is not yours, I do not recommend glueing these on the walls, as it ruins the paint underneath! But since this is my room forever and we live in a villa, I can do whatever I want alhumdullilah. And I have no plans on taking these off anytime soon.

What you need for this project is the following;

A gluegun + gluesticks—which can be found literally anywhere!
3D mirror butterflies (you can choose color yourself)—Can be found HERE on ebay!
A picture to follow—Which you can find HERE. This is of Serena’s room and good to have with you when you’re working with your wall!

The only “con” I have in mind after having these on for around 2-3 years now, is that they get very dusty! I have to clean them once in a while to make them look even brighter, but that’s just something that comes with lol. Other than that, I am SO happy that I had this idea and actually made it happen as well!

Hi loves! I’m back in Sweden now since 2-3 days. Our trip to Pakistan was one of the best trips ever—everything from shopping to parties! We went crazy with clothes this time—the branded and customised suits, ghararaz deluxe, b-neck ugh. I can’t even think about it straight before I get a headache lol. I think I’m all set for Eid this time at least. No big dresses this time! In September I’m starting uni full time as well where I will be studying information architecture and I am so hyped! Will be updating you guys with what’s up etc!

Jumping from one thing to another; I’m slowly working on my instagram & blog as a web tool and just bought the cutest Instagram story icons ever! I was out looking for something that wasn’t mainstream but at the same time fit my business logos, and these fit perfectly! Got them from Etsy for around £9—so now that’s set lol. I love Etsy when it comes to graphics! There’s such talented people sitting there and selling their stuff for no penny at all! If you’re out looking icons as well I would highly recommend MacaronsandMimosas!

The most awaited blogpost of all times!!! So, my visits to Pakistan are frequent. We go almost every year (yass), and every year I write down new things I’ve learned on my trip. Be it small details or necessities! Through the years this has become a habit of mine and it’s literally the most helpful thing ever. I thought it would be fun to share this list with you all today. Since makeup and skincare are two major things that are very imporant as well—I’m gonna divide this in 2/3 parts, the first one, down below, being about the most general things I do not forget/always fix when I land in Pakistan.

I have been talking a lot about powerbanks lately. The thought of having one made me laugh before I actually invested in one and now…. Well now I can’t live without one lol. I would say it’s a great investment for your Pakistan trip, but this thing right here comes in handy back in Sweden as well! The so called “loadshedding” is not a thing in Bahria Town, where we live, but we all know the looong trips to small cities to visit family. You need this thing to keep your phone alive—especially if you have an iPhone! I wrote a review about my new Anker powerbank HERE and I sitll stand by my words!

Carrying on to the WIFI. It’s not the most easiest thing to get a good internet connection here i Pakistan, but it’s not impossible! I would say it’s getting easier and easier every year—might have to do something with Pakistanis improving their services as well lol. Anyway! I strongly recommend a Zong device—the one we used last year was amazing! It’s basically a small device that you charge like any other phone and when fully charged you can just take it with you whereever you go. Although this time we got a Telenor USB that you have to plug in in order to use it. I would say the device is better, especially because of the electricity issues all around the country. The USB is not that bad either… But yea always best to go with something that doesn’t need electricity to run. lol.
You can find both things at your local “shop” where you find SIM-cards and other phone-related things.

Moving on to the music! I’m a bit old school—so I still use iTunes! It can be a bit complicated when you listen to a new song and want it in your playlist instantly—but I’m a perfectionist and not being able to perfectly edit the song name so all the spam SONGS.pk is gone, really can get on my nerves. And idk, I think I just like how iTunes is set up. I used to listen to a lot of underground artists so Spotify was never an option since I couldn’t find the songs on there. Now when I’m more into Punjabi/Bollywood songs, it’s the same issue with Saavn. Also, you have to pay for it now as well and nah… So back to iTunes! You might have to wait until you get home and get the song downloaded on your iPhone—but it’s so worth it! I don’t own a laptop so whenever we travel to Pakistan, my biggest issue is that I won’t be able to update my playlists for a month—since my iTunes library is on my iMac back home. UNTIL I found this little loophole! It’s very easy! All you have to do is copy the iTunes folder on your iMac—or whatever Apple computer—and save it on your harddrive. Then you just import it on the new laptop and the program will ask you of whether you want to use this new library or not. You click ok and you’re all set to go! They’ve explained it more thoroughly HERE.

Still talking about music—I’m a sucker for good speakers. I simply cannot play music without having a good base sound so investing in some good spekers is really a good idea! I would say it’s easier to get a Beats Pill—since it’s small and easy to carry around in your luggage, but we packed our Marshall speakers! This black Killburn one is my sisters that she recently got, so we still had the original packing. It’s always best to be a bit cautious whenever you travel with these things, they’re very fragile.

I was talking about a harddrive above as well, but even if you don’t use iTunes or anything like that, it’s always good to bring your harddrive with you. You never know when your laptop will crash so it’s a good idea to have your pictures and documents backed up. I didn’t bring my harddrive with me last time and my pictures from that trip are still all over the place. Some on my sisters laptop, some on my brothers lol.

Talking about cameras—go and buy yourself an Instax Fuji 8 right now! I’m not kidding when I say it’s really an investment! I always have my Canon with me as well but there’s something about my polaroid camera that just really screams “vacay-memories”. It’s also lighter and easier to carry around than the big DSLR camera—and very appropriate to just snap with when you’re out having fun. I would recommend buying an extra film, cause you only have 10 snaps to go with. I’m working on a review about my Instax camera, so stay tuned!

Halllooo loves ♥ It is currently sehri time soon and here I am, inspired like always. Right now it just feels like I want to do it ALL at the SAME time lol. And that, boys and girls, does not end well. I can practically start a photo album, website, skincare routine, youtube planning all in one go and the next day I just push everything down my table and think it’s weird I thought THAT was inspiring lol. Like… I keep thinking now that Youtube is not “me”, I won’t be able to do it, just to get an extraordinary moodswing and the next second feel like I can conquer the world. Am I the only one? I think that’s more annoying than not being inspired. I just feel like a hot mess and like I have so little time and so much to do. Ugh.

Anyhow, today I went out to visit one of the new “Normal” shops that just opened here in Helsingborg. It’s been a thing in Denmark for quite some time but still new here! I think you can actually call it a Flying Tiger store, just minus all the DIY and craft stuff and instead think in cheap skincare hauls-circles. Something. The main reason I parked my car outside the walking street, even though I was tired as hell, was this St ilves apricot scrub! I know I’ve been talking quite a lot about this on my instagram lately, but after hearing your guys horror stories and reading that very scary article about the lawsuit, I thought it would be a nice hard scrub for my legs lol! I’m dealing with ingrown hair and really right now anything will do. Also legs aren’t that sensitive anyway, I don’t give two cents about mine. Just look soft and smooth thank you very much!

The most common answer to if you guys wanted to see more blogposts like the one I posted yesterday, was YAS, so I thought why not show you guys my beautiful magnet “board” today (don’t even know if you can call it a board.. strip? lol). I got this from Åhlens and with it tiny tiny magnets followed… Which I have no idea where is now. I never got the chance to put it up before and quite honestly; had no idea where to either. I looove decor but I hate cluttering. My room needs to give a contrast look to it, good calm colors and beautiful interior yes! I used to have a “heart wall” in my room before. It’s basically a heart made out of your favorite pictures and since I’m a hobby photographer, my heart was made out of the best pictures ever shot. This was 3-4 years ago and through the years the thought of having random colored pictures on the wall just seems.. nah. It feels too messy. So this board is the only thing where I’m showcasing my photography skills live lol. I was thinking of having beautiful inspo pictures here before, but to print my own work would be better!

The other day I found the perfect magnets as well! So Kate Spade inspired and I absolutely love the gold foiled hearts and dots in two of them. The picture of the boy holding the flowers below is not shot by me—it’s just a random one I found on the internet. If you guys know the real photographer, please do tell me! I put up this thing with two push pins, which I use for almost everything on the walls! This is a really good idea if you don’t like your room to look so messy but at the same time want to show some personality.

I’m currently in a spring-summer-clean-out of my room! Not only is it needed (trust me) but I’m also thinking to make more space for upcoming work here. My mom bought this beautiful trolley from IKEA a while ago and as with everything else, I claimed it first… Even though she bought it lol! I’m so lucky actually, cause my mom and I have the exact same taste in furniture, decor stuff and interior! It feels like I’m cloning myself whenever we go out to do IKEA-shopping and THAT is a feeling of power!

Anyway, enough of my craziness. When I first dragged this trolley to my room, it just looked weird and I didn’t really know what to do with it. Which resulted in me going back with it to my mom and saying that I didn’t really need it anyway… It was first when I was surfing on Pinterest when I got this idea of decorating it with my favorite stationary! So I got it back into my room and ohmygod, this gives such a luxurious look to it.

In here I stored my favorite pens, scissors, planners—just everything stationary. The acrylic tumblr is from Glitter and is actually for jewellery—but I found better purpose for it. The hole puncher and tape dispenser is from Åhlens and the stapler I stole from my sister. Going to order my own very soon! The golden scissors are from eBay and in there I have stacked some Pandora pens I got from my sister as well. The tiny pineapple.. I don’t remember where it’s from but I store all my tiny tiny erasers in there lol. Planner from Lagerhaus and the gems etc from Primark.

I stored my printer on the second “floor” and my laminator on the last one. Still not sure to keep it there or not, will most probably find something better. The trolley is called “Råskog” on IKEA and is actually for the kitchen I think? You can also DIY it with spraypaint if you find it cheaper but in another color!

Back home again! This 4 day trip to Stockholm was soo needed, especially in this heat. To just forget all duties and to-do-lists and enjoy the beautiful weather, no have to’s, no emergency calls. It was almost like I was living another life for a moment lol. We got a bit late on our way to the airport, so the baggage never got on the plan. Ehm… The lady at the helpdesk asked us to take it with us through security and just throw everything away that didn’t make it to the other side. I almost screamed when I thought about my new eyebrow scissors from Anastasia.. Are you crazy?! lol.

One thing that literally saved my whole trip was this powerbank from Anker. As with everything else, I asked you guys for a good solid portable charger for my trips, and 99% of you recommended me an Anker. Said & done, it was ordered the same day! I’ve been using this for almost a month now and I am so much in love! My sister and I fully charged our phones twice and this powerbank STILL had 3 dots left! It is crazyyyy how fast it is! Let’s look at the pro & cons!

PRO’s
- Fastest charger out there.
- A little net pouch comes with it to secure it in your handbag.
- Multifunctional powerbank—you can charge TWO phones at the same time!
- Doesn’t take much time to charge it fully as well. Put it on for a whole night and you can get through a day with constant snapchatting & instastoring.
- You don’t have to turn it off! The minute you take off your iphone, it’ll go into standby mode itself until you put on another phone.
- It’s small! Will easily fit in your handbag without any problems lol.

CON’s
- The design is a bit boring. Black and ugh… Maybe to give it a “serious” look? Idk.. I would love something brighter and more colourful.
- It’s a bit heavy.. I mean not that it’s a problem… But yea, would love something lighter.
- The only thing that came in the box was the powerbank and a wire to charge it with. A plug would be nice as well.. But then again, maybe this is the standard for portable chargers?

Do I recommend this? YES YES YES! I payed approximately £30 and it’s honestly worth soo much more. I purchased it through ebay and you can find the direct link HERE. I had no tax or VAT problems and it arrived within a week. I researched how much it would be on a swedish site and found it for almost £100 lol… Noooo thank you! Thank you so much for your help lovely ladies. Forever thankful ♥

So I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’m going to use this blog. As you know, if you’ve been a loyal follower of mine, this platform used to be for my everyday writing, thoughts, photography—just all the things that makes me, all wrapped up in this blog. Through the years I’ve obviously moved away a bit, I wouldn’t say that I’ve lost the passion for writing here, cause I still think it’s fun—but it just has gotten harder and harder. Like, for instant, what am I supposed to write here after all reviews, tips & tricks, pictures? Is that ALL that’s gonna be here? My every day routine is just boring atm, but then again; it was non existing when I used to write the most? lol. Ugh, it’s so hard getting back here! Like, I do this brainstorming every night that NOW is the time to just get BACK IN THERE, but blaaaah whenever I start, it just feels pathetic.

Let’s just see where all this goes. As for right now, I’m getting late for work and I just realized my eyeliner is a bit uneven. So see ya later!