Stepping into this wedding hall feels a little like stepping into those Bangladeshi summers. There are big, circular tables filling the entire hall, each with a small vase of red and white flowers laced together. Fairy lights twinkle everywhere, winking on and off every few seconds.

“Hani Khala and Raza Khalu went all out,” Priti whispers as we step inside the hall. I have to agree. It makes sense; there’s no way they would have their sole daughter’s wedding on a budget.

I only have a moment to wonder where everybody is before Priti and I are ushered into a back room by a woman in a black and white salwar kameez who looks like she means business.

“Sunny Apu!” Priti cries as we step inside. Because there she is, made up all beautiful like a bride in a traditional red lahenga with a pattern of gold gilded on the edges. I feel a prick of something bubbling up inside of me, some kind of anxiety that I hadn’t expected, and I bite my lip to keep it at bay.

“You two look so lovely!” Khala says from behind Sunny Apu. “Absolutely stunning, don’t they?”

Sunny Apu smiles nervously, nodding at the two of us, but she doesn’t say anything. She looks nervous—scared, even. Priti casts a glance over at me, as if to check if I’ve noticed Sunny Apu’s nervousness too.

“All the bridesmaids are gathering up in the other room.” Hani Khala nods at the door past the dressing table. “They’re almost ready to go, I think.”

Priti and I hurry toward it, giving a fleeting smile to Sunny Apu before slipping inside.

I recognize almost nobody in this room, though they’re all dressed like Priti and me. It takes me a moment to snap out of the dissonance of entering a room where everybody is dressed the same and to politely murmur a hello.

“They must be Sunny Apu’s friends, right?” Priti asks. “And her cousins?”

I nod, my eyes roaming over the lot of them as subtly as possible. There are two girls huddled in one corner of the room who are both white and, I’m pretty sure, Irish. The pink and gold salwar kameez that Hani Khala sent over to all of us looks oddly out of place on them.

“It washes them out,” Priti says, as if reading my thoughts. I shoot her a glare to shut up. The room is small enough that they can hear her, even if she whispers.

In the other corner, there’s a group of four girls. Two of them share features with Sunny Apu, but the other two don’t look Bangladeshi at all.