product. ''Chances are, her wedding is something a bride has been dreaming of for years,'' says Maria Bilal, the fashion mastermind behind Pakistan's

product.
''Chances are, her wedding is something a bride has been dreaming of for years,'' says Maria Bilal, the fashion mastermind behind Pakistan's Maria.B label, which has expanded to the UK, United Arab Emirates, India and North America. So she urges brides to begin with the vision they've always had of themselves as a bride. ''Then I try to show her a dress closest to that vision, after which the designing part comes in. I design something totally new, keeping those requirements in mind.''
2. Strike a balance between being trendy and classic.

South Asian bridal wear is not exempt from trends, but that doesn't mean you have to follow them. ''To a great extent, bridal fashion is beyond trends,'' says Rokni. ''Try some, but don't be suyour outfit comes together.

1. Get a petticoat. If your lengha doesn't come with a built-in petticoat, use the white one that traditional American brides use to help it ''fall nicely and make it fuller and more flattering,'' says Nadia Samadani. It's especially useful if you plan on walking around a lot in your bridal outfit-''It's really nice to have that graceful, elegant fall.''

2. Keep your dupatta in place. ''We stitched tiny loops into my dupatta on the top and sides, and then the hairdresser secured it to my hair by sliding bobby pins through the loops. It secures the duppata-it didn't move, and the bobby pins were completely hidden,'' says Samadani.

3. Get a lighter dupatta or chunni for dancing. ''Even when we asked the lengha store for a lighter chunni,'' says Sabeena Rajpal, ''it was still so heavy. But then my mom also bought me a light scarf and I changed into that later in the night to dance.''per trendy-your photos wil