never wanted to get married. Yes, I was that woman. My mom loves to tell stories of how, even when I was a little girl, I would bemoan how much more work wives do than their husbands, and how they were never even thanked for it.

As an adult, I became increasingly adamant about this decision to never marry, mainly because, growing up in Bangladesh, the marriages I saw around me just meant for women to compromise and sacrifice more than their male counterparts. I also witnessed a lot of bad marriages — or bad matches, I should say — since most partnerships around me were made in a culture that believed only in arranged marriages.

Even after sister after sister of mine got married, I remained determined not to give into the pressure, or to questions about when I was going to put on my traditional red and gold wedding sari. In my mind, being single and having freedom was the best marriage a girl could have.

Soon after finishing college, I left the States, moved to Italy, got my Master's, and started to work in London. I had already made a commitment: to myself. You could say my parents had all but given up on even trying to move me in the direction of "domestic bliss".

So when I got engaged last year at the age of 29, needless to say, people were taken by surprise, to say the least. Meeting my now-husband and deciding to take that leap was something that we both talked about and thought about at length, between ourselves, before we let any family or friends enter the conversation.

It made me realize that I had never wanted to get married not because I did not want to be married, but really because I never thought I would ever find the right partner. I had convinced myself that the right spouse for me did not, and simply could not, exist. It was, I guess, a defense mechanism of sorts.

But when the dust settled from the news of the ultimate feminist, aka me, tying the knot, what really bothered me was how people assumed that, by getting married, I would no longer be a feminist. People had decided that I could not be both. After all, how could one be both a loving wife and a staunch feminist? The two belief systems contradicted each other in the minds of so many people that it made me realize I was confronting one of the worst stereotypes still out there: if you are a feminist, then you hate men.

Not only is this untrue, but many, many well-known women who identify themselves as feminists are, or have been, married; from such women's rights icons as Gloria Steinem, Eleanor Smeal, Kim Gandy, and Jessica Valenti to feminist-declared actors such as Nicole Kidman or Ashley Judd, every single one of these women has experienced a husband at one point or another. The list goes on and on.

Of course you can be a feminist and get married. You can even be a Muslim feminist like me and get married. I think the difference is how you get married; for example, having key feminist themes and elements incorporated into your wedding with the groom's full support. There was no doubt that, once I agreed to marry my now-husband, my wedding was going to be big, fat, and feminist.

How did I do this? For starters, I had my wedding at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Yes, really. And after my brother-in-law read the passage on marriage from the Koran, which emphasizes equality in your union, I was asked three times in front of the whole wedding party — so as to emphasize the fact that it was I who was in control of this engagement — if I accepted my husband's hand in marriage (a requirement in Islamic ceremonies). Also in keeping with Muslim tradition, I did not change my legal name. Not to mention the fact that I had an entire table of my colleagues from the Feminist Majority Foundation at the wedding; you could say, we were well represented.

Being a staunch feminist also helped when I was maneuvering my way around the American bridal industry, something as a Bangladeshi I never imagined I would have to do. But do it I sure did, and here's what I learned: this entire business is built around exploiting and even preying upon women's insecurities and anxieties.

One such example goes like this: midway through wedding planning I got a kidney stone, fell gravely ill, and lost twenty pounds. The women working to alter my dress thought this was great news and worked hard to convince me how important it was that I keep this weight off so I could effortlessly slip into a sample-size gown. I walked straight out of that store and into the closest Mexican restaurant I could find.

The wedding industry is also centered around making you buy a lot of stuff for your wedding that you don't really need. Do you think your wedding guests really want a personalized pearl and diamante, heart-shaped framed picture of you and your husband to take home?

But the most important feminist aspect about my wedding was the decision I made to get married in the first place. I married when I wanted, how I wanted, to the man I wanted, when it was right for me. Everything happened under my own terms and in my own time. And the key thing of which to take note is the fact that my husband backed me the whole way. In the end, isn't that all that really matters?