Ashley's Arabian Adventure

Last night I went to my first Arab wedding and it was so much fun! Other than trying to figure out the greeting kisses and old ladies speaking Arabic super fast like I could understand them, it was really great. As you can see in the picture here, it was pretty cheesy and reminded me a lot of prom. Well minus boys, I suppose.

So here's how it went down. It "started" at 5:00, so we showed up a little before 6 and the bride and groom showed up a while after that. They stood outside of the girls' room while the ladies of the family all danced in front of them in this circle. Then they came inside and went on the stage and sat on this throne-like thing. At some point they did the rings, but it wasn't really like announced or anything. Then they danced with the smoke and all that jazz. After a while everyone joined in and they went to sit down. They went and sat on the stage and then came back to dance again several times and when they weren't dancing all of the ladies were. After a this went on for a while the groom left and most of the coverings came off. The ladies were in everything from prom dresses to jeans. I saw my roommate's language teacher's hair for the first time and I was really surprised at how pretty she was when she wasn't in her abaya and scarf. I got dragged out on the dance floor by her and her mom several times. I showed off some of my belly dancing skills and was later informed that her whole family was looking at me. I'm glad I didn't know that at the time!

After a while the guys came into the room and all the coverings went back on. They wheeled in this massive cake with nine or ten tiers. The best part was that it also had sparklers on it. The couple then had to cut every tier with a sword. We ate some cake and then there was some awkward dancing with the guys in the room. Girls can only dance with guys they are related to and it was a bit awkward to see brothers and sisters dancing like that. When we were ready to go we had to go congratulate the bride and groom. That was where the awkward kisses came in. I was not warned ahead of time how that works and I was trying to figure it out and speak Arabic at the same time. It didn't work out so well, but I guess that's when it's good that I am obviously a foreigner!

There are a few more pictures from the wedding on fb if you want to check them out.