Our Eid...Day #2

I'm sure you know by now that when my family does Eid, we tend to make the most of it! On the second day of Eid we had lunch at my sister's and my family went to my aunt's for dinner, which was a relaxed evening of fun.

My outfit for the second day was a metallic green and gold outfit by a Pakistani label called Sequence, which my best friend bought as a gift for me on her last visit to Pakistan. I love the cut of this outfit - the top is a A-line angrakha-style top, which came with shimmery gold salwar-style bottoms that went perfectly. I paired this with metallic gold heels and a gold and cream clutch, which went perfectly!

I loved the decor my sister had set up - colourful pastels, which was finished off by a beautiful throw on the table to bring the colours together. She always puts together a different, pretty theme for Eid as well as Ramadan and I loved the colours for this year.

Food was a fun affair, with plenty of dishes of course - if you're from an Asian family like mine you'll know that it's not a dinner unless theres lots of different dishes and desserts!

The babies went colourful for the second day of Eid, with flouncy party dresses that they looked seriously cute in!

I wish I had more photos to show you of our Eid weekend, but honestly we always manage to not take enough because we're too busy yakking away and enjoying the good food!

Hope you all had a good weekend!

xx

Our Eid...Day #1

We had a lovely long weekend celebrating Eid this weekend, with plenty of opportunity to overstuff ourselves with food! It was nice to spend the day dressed up, especially with the weather being nice and sunny, and everyone being free for the weekend.

This is what I wore on Eid, which was a pretty mint-coloured kurta with silky pants. My sisters and I didn't get time to order anything online so had a look around the shops, and I ended up going with this outfit that my husband actually pointed out on a second visit to the shops! You can't tell properly but this is a shimmery gold tone to the fabric for a two-tone effect. I loved the colour palette of this kurta, lilacs, gold, silver and mint which for perfect for the warm weather.

I bought this outfit from a small shop in Ilford Lane, East London called Laaj London, which is a fairly new shop (Facebook page here and Instagram page here), where they had a range of different colours. The kurta was quite reasonably priced and fit perfectly, and I thought it was a pretty decent find among the madness of Eid shopping!

We started off Eid with lunch at my mum's house, which is always a tradition for us, as it's the one place myself and all of my siblings descend to get together, enjoy our mum's food and get all of the kids together. Unfortunately I have absolutely no pictures of the food, as we were pretty hungry and I forgot to take any! But just assume the food looked as amazing as it tasted!

We then decided to do something a little different for the evening, with a barbecue hosted by my brother and sister-in-law at their house. My sister-in-law had hired a bouncy castle for the children (which was fully enjoyed by all of us!), and we spent the evening chilling out with family and enjoying the warm evening.

If you know my family, you'll know that the toddlers in my family always steal the show - with credits for their dresses to my mum! The toddlers all wore matching floral dresses (the one in the middle had the dress too, but she wore a lilac dress to match all of her other cousins!)

This year I joined in with an online Secret Eid, which was really fun - there were over 40 participants, and it was fun to see the gifts everyone got! I opened my Secret Eid on Eid day and loved what i received - candles, an engraved personalised bookmark, travel mug, book light, chocolates and a gorgeous box that it all came in.

I also received some beautiful presents from my sisters, including these gorgeous purple heels, and a whole treasure trove of makeup, chocolate and jewellery from my eldest sister.

We finished off the day with a seriously chocolatey cake made by one of my sisters, which was as chocolatey and rich as it looks!

It was a lovely way to spend our Eid, and one which was special because all of the family which got together, which can be rare for all of us! The only thing I wish we had photos of was the outfits for the ladies in the family - we were too busy chasing after the kids and stuffing our faces!

Our Eid...Day #2

We spent the second day of our Eid at my mum's house - no family celebration is complete without all of us converging at my mum's house and eating her food! Some of the family members weren't able to come on the Friday because they couldn't get time off work, so it was nice to see them all on the weekend.

For the second day of Eid I was going to go for a simple printed kurta but ended up buying something very different last minute! I wore this beautiful cream brocade maxi jacket from a Malaysian brand called Aatiya London, which I saw a few months ago but only bought recently because it went on sale. The jacket came with a matching cream skirt, but I thought the skirt was too much for Eid (it felt a little bridal!) so went for a plain silk cream camisole and trousers to match instead.

As always, the food at my mum's was delicious and there was lots of it, finished off with some kheer that my mum made along with some chocolate cake!

My nieces all got plenty of party dresses this Eid, and of course showed us up as usual in their pretty dresses and party shows - perfect for the warm weather!

I do have to apologise to you guys - I don't have any good pictures of the family outfits at all! We were all too busy wandering around eating, playing games and hanging out in the kitchen, and just didn't take proper photos! (Don't worry, I'll make an effort to next time!)

I'm pretty sure you'll be able to see more pictures of our Eid on my sister's blogs here and here (when they write up their posts!) - we all had fun with the family and enjoyed a long weekend of food and a much-needed rest from work!

How was your Eid? What did you wear?

Our Eid...Day #1

Our Eid this weekend was a nice long weekend (just the way we like it!) so my family and I took full advantage by celebrating on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, getting dresses up and having dinners with family.

This is what I wore this Eid - a frilly sleeved short kameez with white culottes and a simple, summery hijab with bangles - simple, comfortable and very fun to wear! My sisters and I did our usual trek around the local shops and didn't see a lot of affordable outfits, so I decided to look online and see what was available. I've noticed that a lot of the local shops have increased their prices, or otherwise started stocking designer labels in order to compete with the online businesses which can afford to lower their prices, but unfortunately while I would like to support the high street, I can't always afford to!

I bought this outfit below from a local vendor in east London call Aisha's Boutique, who does online orders, and gets outfits made in Pakistan without raising the price too extravagantly. I placed my order with the vendor about 10 days before Eid, gave my measurements, colour samples and rough design of what I wanted based on a photo of an outfit I liked, and it arrived pretty quickly! The price was also extremely reasonable, at £50.00 for the kameez and trousers, including stitching and shipping - bargain!

I do have to admit that I didn't end up wearing the original pants on the day and picked culottes instead - the pants I did get were a chikan-style flared pants, which I didn't love so didn't wear.

We did our first day of Eid at my eldest sisters house, with a delicious lunch being cooked by her. One of the things my sister always does every year is have a decor theme to set the mood, and this year it was blues and greens, with beautiful Islamic tile backgrounds that we all loved.

As usual, we were all too busy eating to take many photos of the food, but here's a peep! I also loved my sister's home-made mojito which was a perfect refresher!

I didn't also get many chance to take pictures of my family's outfits, but here's some my sister took off my sister and sister-in-law - I loved the vibrant colours and how pretty the work was on both of these.

As usual my nieces looked like princesses in their dresses, and here they are standing with a tiny cousin of mine that they all love to play with!

Another thing my sister never forgets is treats - for the adults and the kids! We all have a terrible sweet-tooth, and it just isn't Eid without some sweets! My sister also received some seriously cool sweets/mithai from British fusion-food company Barfia, which had a very cool mix of Indian-and-British flavours, like red-velvet Ladoo and candy-floss mithai!

We had a really fun lunch with the family, and as always it's lovely to have a laugh with them, as well as get all dressed up and enjoy the day. It was a really nice start to the weekend, and the only thing I wish I could show you but didn't get a photo of, was that my husband finally listened to me and matched his t-shirt to me!

Eid Mubarak - Our Eid Day...!

Eid Mubarak guys! 

I've finally got a chance to sit down and post about my Eid day, although unfortunately I didn't take as many pictures on the day as I wanted! You can check out my sisters' blogs here and here for when they post their pictures, so keep an eye out on theirs too.

First up, what I ended up wearing: My sister and I went shopping a few times locally and I also looked online for outfit ideas - we both found that there's a huge range of styles in at the moment - florals, frills, bell-sleeves, pearls, maxi dresses, flared trousers, kimonos and so much more, which meant there was a lot of choice, and made us feel a little overloaded in styles. I was pretty much open to any ideas, and didn't have anything specific in mind, which made my shopping trips easier, and meant I was less fussy about what to look at.

I ended up buying a jacket-and-kameez outfit from a local boutique called Golden Zari, which had some very pretty outfits, and is quite a popular place for formals for weddings. I haven't worn coral-orange before, and loved the beautiful embroidery on this jacket, which is actually quite heavily embellished with pearls, beading, metal-work and sequins all over the front and back too. I forgot to take a picture of the back, but here's the outfit - a short kameez and jacket style with tapered trousers.

And of course I couldn't resist posting some close-ups! I wanted to also show the gorgeous clutch bag (which was so teeny it only fit my lipstick) thatI pulled out for Eid, and my floral mehndi which I managed to do the night before Eid!

I'm pretty gutted that I didn't get any pictures of my sisters or sister-in-law at all - they all had beautiful outfits on, which looked very on-trend and colourful. I have got some pictures of all the toddler nieces looking gorgeous though, in lovely party dresses!

My mum opted for her favourite soft colours - a spring green and pink, while my niece looked  very cool in a gold kurta, paired with tan and black accessories - giving me a run for my money there with that pose!

The girls all had lovely mehndi on their hands too - I wish I had taken pictures of the little girls' hands, but these are my sister's and niece's hands which looked lovely.

My sister brought gorgeous rainbow glittery Eid cupcakes for us to enjoy on the day (cue us taking ten thousands pictures of cakes in different angles) which was a lovely touch, perfect for dessert after a huge Eid lunch!

One of the things we all enjoy about the lead-up to Eid is getting Eid presents for the kids - they look forward to opening them and we love seeing happy they get. They all got quite a haul this year, and of course my sisters and I overloaded each other with makeup and chocolates!

We had a fab Eid, the kids got balloons (half of which flew away in the sky) and spent the day in my mum's garden picking the cherries off a very ripe cherry tree and filling up buckets!

I have a few events and weddings up coming this month (July will be a pretty busy month!) so can't wait to post more pictures - so watch this space!

I hope you all had a lovely Eid weekend - what did you wear?