I recently attended a henna night and wedding for an Emirati couple for which I gleefully had to purchase some nice kaftans or jalabiyas to wear to.  I’d been wanting to buy some of these ever since I moved to Dubai, so it was a good excuse to finally do so.

The henna night, or Laylat al Henna, (and definitely not to be confused with a hen night) is a traditional ladies-only celebration a few days before the wedding.  Normally henna decoration would be applied to the bride-to-be and the females in attendance, but things in Dubai are not quite so traditional any more, so there was no henna (which I was kind of bummed about).  In this case, the celebration is sometimes called instead Laylat al Arabiya, the “Arabian night”.  Lack o’ henna aside, it was a beautiful evening of Arabian decor and fashion, food, music and celebration. For this event I chose something a bit more casual and bohemian…

{ kaftan by Hemant & Nandita }

…and for the wedding I went for something that had a bit of a fancier or more evening-wear look to it.  Although, not evening-wearish enough.  I felt (and looked, I guess) pretty under-dressed for the wedding, where people dressed like they were about to accept an Academy Award. Oh well.  I pulled my dual-toned hair back into a simple, sleek ponytail to make up for the omgaccessoriesandprintoverload! going on with the rest of the outfit.

{ kaftan by Mimosa | clutch by Aila | necklace by Assad Mounser }