A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE SOUTH ASIAN WEDDING INDUSTRY WITH NISHMA MISTRY, FOUNDER OF ASIAN BRIDE SORORITY

The below is an accompanying write-up to a longer audio conversation.

LISTEN TO THE FULL CONVERSATION VIA LINKS BELOW (SUBSCRIBE OR FOLLOW THE “LONDON WRITING GUY” PODCAST FOR FUTURE EPISODES)

Planning a wedding, particularly South Asian wedding planning, can be like navigating a minefield. You tread through the process ever so carefully, given all that there is to do. From arranging a date to pleasing all sides. Every step of the way, every turn, you’re millimeters from stepping on a trigger that might set off an all-mighty explosion. Some might be little, mini flare-ups, which can be doused fairly quickly. However, you just know you’re around the corner from WWIII. It's almost as if South Asian families thrive off of the chaos.

Asian Bride Sorority (ABS) was set up to navigate this exact field. The daunting list of tasks, with looming deadlines (although, if you ask the mothers involved, they don't actually have a list.) The uncertainty of whether the suppliers you have paid thousands of pounds will come good. Can they walk the walk or are they just talkin’ the talk!? Most importantly, where to start? There should be an app for that! Nishma Mistry not only created that app (albeit, not an actual app), she created an entire community to help brides-to-be manage and plan the biggest event of their lives.

Nishma Mistry, founder of Asian Bride Sorority

Nishma created ABS to make the process, specifically for brides, that little bit less stressful, a little clearer and that much more manageable. The best part of it, she tells me, “is you get to plan your wedding with having the support of this huge community of other brides who are also planning at the same time as you.” But this isn't just about the planning. Getting married can result in a seismic shift in your daily life. For some brides, having to uproot and potentially move hundreds of miles away from the place they called home for decades can be a very lonely experience. This is also where ABS comes in. "A lot of the girls, off the back of it, have made life-long friends...A lot of girls from ABS have found friendships in the new cities they've moved to, through the community. That's pretty amazing!"

Nish and I crossed paths around 10 years ago. We were colleagues for a little while, but we both left the company we worked for. Our reasons were similar, but Nish had a very different set of scenarios to contend with. “I was so stressed in the role that I was in.” I’m not surprised. The ad-agency world can grind down the most hardened of individuals. My move out of the industry came 14 years after enduring the ups and the downs. For the both of us, COVID was pivotal in making the decision to venture towards new horizons. When I eventually made the change, I had nowhere to go and no plans set out. I just knew I couldn’t do it anymore. The toxicity of the working environment was somewhere I knew I didn’t want to be. For Nish, during a period of COVID weddings, she made the leap towards the Asian wedding industry and decided to double down on an already existing side-hustle.

Our conversation was a bit of an overdue catch up but one that really delved into the weeds of why Nish felt like she had to take the plunge and set up her own business. She shares, quite candidly in my opinion, her IVF and fertility journey, which I commend her for as not everyone is comfortable in doing so, especially those from the South Asian community. That said, this isn’t something Nish has always been comfortable in talking about, as she goes into during our conversation) 

What really strikes me about Nish’s story is the journey and the path taken towards creating Asian Bride Sorority. Out of the stress and frustration related to work, as well as difficult life circumstances, has come this wonderfully thriving, organic, community. Couple that with the success of Nish’s twins, and you can’t help but smile.

I am not sure I expected this conversation to be taken up so much with talking about Nish’s fertility journey. Perhaps because I didn’t know about it going in, however it was refreshing to have done so, because these are the conversations that we, as South Asians, just do not have. We aren’t yet prepared to discuss these things openly. To be honest, not many communities are and that’s not just the South Asian community. And I understand why. It can be a person, sometimes painful and upsetting thing to discuss, especially if your story is not a positive one. But this proves to me that what I am attempting to do, tell stories of people from our community, can only be a positive.

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