A Nice Day for a White Wedding...

I was invited to go to a wedding this week. A family member of one of A’s co-workers was getting married and I was able to tag along.  I have to admit that I was REALLY excited about this.  To a girl who doesn’t get out much, this was a BIG deal.  I had angel khAla take my fabric for my fancy outfit to a friend of hers who sews and get it made for me.  I forgot to get a photo of that…will take one soon…

The day of the wedding, A got up early so he could be ready to go to the men’s ceremony that started at 7:30 am.  He was back 45 minutes later. He described that they walked into the hotel, sat down, were handed food, ate, got up and left.  What a celebration huh?!?

At 12:15 when the ladies and I arrived at the hotel, the scene was slightly different.  You could hear the music pumping all the way down the street.  We walked into the hotel and I couldn’t help but smile…I like weddings a lot! The room (about the size of a high school gymnasium) was packed with women, I would guess between 400 and 500 sat at tables. There were kids and babies running around everywhere.  In the front of the room was a large stage covered in white satin, Christmas lights and flowers.  Below the stage in the center was the dance floor, where young women took turns dancing to the (very very loud) music that was played by a live band at the back of the room. 

We were ushered to a table up front by A’s co-worker.  Thus began the next 5 ½ hours of being greeted by floods of women who came up to our table, talking and laughing with A’s other co-workers, watching the bride and groom make their appearance 3 times and trying to keep track and of the family ties of everyone. Amazingly, the 2 co-workers who sat with my German teammate and I knew everyone and how they were all related.  They described patiently who was whose aunt, how she was related to the women we met 10 minutes ago, how this woman’s aunt was married to that woman’s son, etc.  It was very very overwhelming…there were SO many women to keep track of and it was SO loud! We basically had to yell in each other’s ears and I walked out 6 hours later with a massive headache (that could have been from the noise, or speaking language for 6 hours straight, or both!).

It is hard to describe those 6 hours…hard to wrap my head around it all. There were so many women and kids, so many fancy dresses, so much gold, so much glitter, so much makeup…you get the idea.  We sat for an hour or so meeting people and watching women dance before the bride and groom made their first appearance. They came in wearing green wedding clothes (green is a sacred color here) they went on stage and did some henna on each other’s hands and then their hands were tied together to symbolize their marriage.

The couple and their attendants in their green outfits

This couple had actually chosen each other after falling in love.  Here that is very rare as usually the marriages are arranged by the parents who “shop around” for spouses for their children.  These two had met during school in Pakistan, fallen in love and convinced their families to let them marry.  I was told that it took over a year of their families denying their request and the groom threatening to go back to Pakistan and never return if he couldn’t have this girl before it actualized into this union. So there they are in their green finery, being shown as a couple for the first time.

Interesting to note that in each picture the bride looks down and looks generally miserable.  I asked my friend Az about that and she reminded me that though the bride is happy, she MUST appear to be miserable to make it look like she is appropriate and a “good woman”…meaning that she isn’t having any fun on the biggest day of her life.  Because we all know that being miserable when you get married means success right? So anyway, she was all done up, but looked sad. I am hoping she is really has happy as I was told. 

So, after they made their appearance, the couple scooted back into their private room and the food began to roll out.  It is no easy feat to feed 400+ women and children. The plates of food (rice with carrots, raisins, meat) fed two people and came with bread, oranges, tea and pop.  We ate and ate and ate…the food was surprisingly good. There must have been a silent signal in the room because once plates were empty, kids all over the room were scrambling for the pop bottles.  Throughout the rest of the wedding we saw at least a dozen kids walking around chugging pop straight from the 2 liter bottles – pretty funny. As we were wiping our greasy fingers the music started back up and the bride and groom were making their second appearance. They walked down the aisle under a banner of cloth held up by attendants.  This time they were wearing traditional wedding clothes; velvet with very ornate designs stitched into them with gold thread.  This time when they reached the stage, they stood and bowed as a gesture of thanks each time the announcer said the names of friends and family members. They left once again and more dancing took place.

Here is the couple arriving in traditional clothes under the banner

Showing their gratitude

I love the lighting in this picture

The cake made its way to the stage after this and the bride and groom followed soon after in traditional (and very very sparkly) wedding clothes. By this time I was ready to head out…we had seen all of the fancy clothes, I had been away from home for 4 hours and was beginning to worry about my men.  My local friends insisted we stay however. They kept saying, ‘you will want to see the amount of gold she receives, and you have to taste the cake!’ I thought about it and realized that there was a LOT of money floating around the room…so decided to stay and see what materialized. 

The couple with their 5 tiered cake

The couple in their traditional wedding clothes, pre gold

A LOT of gold materialized.  It took 20 minutes for them to deck the girl out with all of the gold she received. In this culture, gold is a girl’s saving’s account basically…it is what she has to hang onto in life. This one will be sitting pretty!  She had at least two rings on each finger, a tiara, 5 gold bangles on each hand, 3 necklaces, countless pairs of earrings and they even started a bag for things that she couldn’t wear – like pairs of earrings and extra rings.  It was crazy.  Hard to fathom that there is that kind of money in that place and I walked away with mixed feelings.  There are so many that are starving and just on the brink of survival…and yet there is this.  I still don’t know what to make of it, but I must admit that I enjoyed every minute of the experience.

What seemed like a lifetime later a very elaborate cake-cutting ceremony was complete. We were handed a little taste of it and then made a bolt for the door. 

All in all, we had a great time. It was fun to see so many women out enjoying themselves for the day while all dressed up.