When I tell people about my wedding, they don't have the reaction you'd expect. Rather than smiling wistfully, they often look aghast when I tell them that my mother-in-law chose my wedding dress and that I didn’t see it until the morning of the celebration. She also chose the venue, the food, my jewelry, and my beautician. Plus, she lived almost 4,000 miles away and I'd never actually met her in person.

I can understand why people might think that I was forced to forfeit my freedom, although they're usually too polite to actually say that. Or why people might imagine that I’m a downtrodden, exploited, Muslim woman stripped of her personal agency. But that couldn’t be further from the truth: My wedding was an experience that helped me to build relationships with my new relatives, gave them the opportunity to welcome me into their family, and showed my husband that I value and respect his parents.

It’s so easy to judge a cultural practice that you haven’t come across before as backward and regressive at first glance. But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll often find that your perceptions don’t match up to someone else’s reality.

Islamic marriages are split into two necessary parts, held over two separate days. The first part is called a nikah, where husband and wife agree to be married, sign on the dotted line, and have a celebration with their guests (like an Anglican service and reception). The second part is called a walima, which is like an after-party organized by the groom’s family, where everyone toasts to the happy couple. A walima is held very soon after a nikah, often on the next day or usually within a week.

My nikah was held in the U.K., and I’d chosen the venue and the invitations, the flowers, and the dress. I’d picked a menu, bought wedding shoes, chosen a photographer, booked a makeup artist, found a hairdresser, and prepared myself for moving to a new city with my soon-to-be-husband. I probably should’ve known better than to get married in February, because it snowed the evening before. I began the day swigging cough syrup straight from the bottle because I had a cold, and I arrived at the venue wearing a pair of multi-colored wellies to protect my shoes from the sludgy gray snow. A huge number of guests hadn’t arrived because of the poor weather and my fiancé was late for the photo session, because the snow had caused a traffic jam.

And so, after my nikah, I was tired. I felt like I'd been running on a treadmill set to incline in the months leading up to it. I needed to lie down (and if I wasn’t a teetotal Muslim, a stiff drink). However, two days after the ceremony, I got on a plane to Peshawar in Pakistan, the city my husband moved away from over a decade ago but where his family still lived. They couldn’t attend the first part of our wedding, so we flew to them for the second part. This was quite unusual, granted, but it was really important for my husband that his family be involved in the celebrations, as I’m sure it would’ve been for me if my parents lived on another continent.

I’d only ever spoken to my in-laws over the phone, so when I got off the plane it was a big moment. My mother-in-law hugged me tightly in one of those embraces that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable and unsure of what to do with your arms — should I pat her back like she’s a puppy or remain motionless like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz? The embrace lasted so long, however, that it transitioned from feeling uncomfortable into feeling just right. I hadn’t prepared for the veracity of her warm energy but here I was, enveloped by her love.