In my distinguished role as eldest sibling of the bride, I am arranging for the jewellery to be presented to her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law. I am also a complete incompetent at such things (though I know and like nice jewellery when I see it) so we asked an aunt to take us to a jeweller to find something. The aunt, unfortunately, comes from the robber baron side of the family, and though fallen on hard times, still approaches life as though backed by her grandfather’s bank. So she took us to one of the old family jewellers and placed orders on our behalf without considering (or even asking about) costs, leave alone bargaining, while we watched nervously and in a daze, wondering if this was just how it was done, until I saw her promise to place an order for a 10 tola solid gold bracelet in 22 carats for her son’s future wife (the son is not showing any inclination to marry, and if he does it will almost certainly not be a Pakistani bride). We dropped her off and returned, furtively, to cancel some of the order and downgrade some of the rest, and also to rethink our plans and increase our budgets as we had clearly no idea how much jewellery costs even when one is not a scion of the 22 families.
I do enjoy jewellery though, I would like to have more made.