The guests at an Afghan wedding tend to wear new clothing with traditional forms. The female guests wear all their finery and jewels. Brides traditionally wear red or green clothing, although many modern brides wear white dresses based on Western fashions. The colour of the decorative braid along the hem of the bride's trousers corresponds to the braids on the dress and the head covering.
Brides and grooms often change clothing several times during the wedding day, and a white Western gown for the bride is easily swapped for a traditional ethnic outfit.
In Kabul and other Afghan cities the main celebrations take place in large wedding halls, full of glitter, where sometimes more than a thousand guests are entertained; but men and women are sitting in separate rooms!
“Marriage party of poorer class – bridegroom and bride followed by girl carrying the bride’s clothes” From: Frank A. Martin, Under the Absolute Amir of Afghanistan, ……, 1907, opp. p. 96.
