Umber Ahmad, owner of the Mah Ze Dahr Bakery in New York, U.S.A. recently tied the knot with Ray Cisara. While love itself is always reason enough to celebrate, and of course, an HSY bridal is highly coveted by any bride, it is the story of how the bridal was created that has us floored.

Both Umber and HSY share a Punjabi background, and thus, explains the designer, the motifs used were developed keeping that culture and its symbols in mind

“I’m an Arain, from the Mian family and our family ancestry comes from around Bhagwanpura and around the Shalimar Gardens, so that was the design inspiration. The juicy shades of Umber’s dress are also inspired by the flowers in Shalimar Garden.

“As far as the shape was concerned, we wanted it to be something that was traditionally Pakistani, but also had a ball gown style, the veil was also deliberately done in the length mainly because it speaks of the regality of our culture as well as the ability to assimilate into a western culture,” HSY says.

“The pomegranate, dark maroon, rose pink and the embroidery motifs are different shades and sizes of roses that are done in gold as well as in thread motif and also in beading,” expands HSY. But the very special thing about the embellishment on the outfit is that it was locally sourced.

“Predominantly all the embroidery techniques done on this outfit hail from smaller towns from Pakistan specially places like Sialkot, Bahawalpur, and Multan.

Our aim was to try to bring as much of Pakistan into this outfit as possible because it was also being worn at a very high-profile wedding in the United States. And since I was attending the wedding and I knew the kind of people who would be there. I wanted to be able to talk about the outfit in a way that it represented the complete craft and culture of Pakistan,” says the designer.

“The embroidery is done by women at Kashf Foundation,” he reveals, “it really speaks volumes of the kind of capacity and the kind of potential Pakistan can offer the world.