There have been a lot of speculations about Bakhtawar Bhutto Zardari’s wedding dress ever since she got married to Mahmood Choudhry last month. Recently designer Wardha Saleem was spotted in an interview with BBBC Urdu. “Neither did we use a gold wire nor did we put in diamonds on this dress,” said the designer Wardha Saleem, laughing as she spoke to BBC Urdu.
Wardha said that her brand uses the most decent designs for bridal dresses. She revealed that Bakhtawar’s bridal dress contained the most high-quality and decent material from local markets in Pakistan. “Bakhtawar’s chiffon was handmade locally. As a brand, we make use of the best local material [for bridal dresses] available in Pakistan,” she said.
When asked whether she felt nervous on designing the dress for Bakhtawar’s big day, she said it wasn’t true. “You can say we were excited and not under pressure,” adding that the team enjoyed working on the dress knowing how much confidence Bakhtawar had on their brand. Wardha referred to Bakhtawar as a “dream bride” for any brand, saying that in the very first few meetings held between the two to discuss the dress, Bakhtawar told them that she didn’t have any doubt on their capabilities.
“We did hold a few discussions on the customization of the dress,” she said. “However, Bakhtawar never interfered in our work. It took 45 craftsmen to work on Bakhtawar’s bridal dress, they spent a massive 7,000 hours in making the dress. The reason why this dress took so long is because it is handwoven and we used the finest material available. We worked on it for 7 months and for two to three months, we worked double 24 hour shifts,” she added.
Wardha mentioned that after one or two meetings, our approach was so strong that anything else wasn’t needed. “It often happens that when bridal dresses are being made, clients often ask their designers to send them pictures of the dress. However, I personally think this happens when clients do not trust their designers. I think another reason this happens is because everyone has dreams about his/her big day and they want everything to be perfect. However, Bakhtawar wasn’t like that at all and trusted us completely,” said Wardha.
