User:Mar4d/Wedding of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari

The wedding of Benazir Bhutto and Asif Ali Zardari took place on 18 December 1987 in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan.

Engagement
Benazir was aged 32 when she first met Asif Ali Zardari. Her pre-marriage life was considered unusual in the sense that most Pakistani women who reached her age would have usually been married "for many years." During her college years, her mother Nusrat and her aunts had looked for a suitor but Benazir remained intent on meeting someone whom she would marry for love. However, with the execution of her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto during the regime of Zia-ul-Haq and with several of Benazir's subsequent years spent under arrest, she increasingly began to consider the prospects of an arranged marriage.

At that time, Benazir was a rising political figure in Pakistan, famous as an upcoming successor of the prestigious Bhutto political dynasty that had lost much of its glory during the years of Zia's military government. Many Pakistanis thought of her as their "sister or daughter." According to Mary Englar, due to her highly publicized life, "she did not have the privacy to go on dates" and meet possible husbands. Most of her time was dedicated to politics and affairs concerning the Pakistan Peoples Party which she led. According to Englar, her life was dedicated to bringing back freedom and democracy in Pakistan and she needed a husband in that regard who would understand the importance of her career. At first, she admittedly thought that she may have trouble finding many Pakistani men who would want to marry a woman that aspired for a high-profile career alongside having family commitments.

Finally in July 1987, Bhutto agreed to meet Asif Ali Zardari, a man whom her aunt had suggested to consider for marriage. Bhutto found Zardari as a kind and caring man and seven days after she had met him, asked her mother to go ahead with the marriage. The wedding was scheduled in December that year. During their engagement period, Zardari called Benazir every night. He recounted memories of having seen Benazir since their teenage life, when Benazir would go to the movies with her friends to a cinema that was owned by Zardari's father, Hakim Ali.

Wedding
In Pakistani customs, the groom traditionally gives the bride several expensive outfits and sets of jewelry for the wedding. At the time of the wedding, Benazir asked for just two outfits. She hoped that their "simple" wedding would change the trend of over-expensive weddings in Pakistan that sometimes left many Pakistani families in debt. At the wedding, she wore a white dress that was embroidered with golden thread.