21/09/2023
Into, a San Francisco based online magazine reports on a queer couple from South London, who enjoyed a traditional Bangladeshi wedding, and whose beautiful special photographs have gone viral, prompting much outpouring of love from people across the LGBTQIA and wider Muslim communities. Umairah and Sameera got married in Brixton, South London, a fortnight ago. David Hudson reporting for the Into portal, reports that “It was important that we kept our culture, both being South Asian—Bangladesh (Umairah) and India (Sameera)—and Muslim,” Umairah said. “It was a no-brainer that we would do all the cultural traditions that cishet couples do, from draping a curtain of fairy lights over the front of my entire flat to a pre-wedding mehndi (henna) party with the mitai, haldi, and falooda. We even had a henna artist come and put mehndi on all the guests!” “Being queer and South Asian, you go through a period of feeling like your culture is not something you can involve with your queerness, but that is untrue. It’s a birthright for us to have the traditions we grew up being assimilated into,” Umairah added. “It was important to both of us to keep the parts of our culture that we are entitled to. I am not alienated from what’s mine: homophobes are alienated from me.”
