A Saudi wedding

    Originally written in Sep. 2000 and updated October 2003

  After the Melka is performed, (read my paper about The Melka) a date will have been set for the wedding,  the wedding could be the same night as the Melka or much later, one niece’s wedding was 2 years after the Melka.

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  My daughter’s best friend was getting married and we were invited to her wedding. The bride was a student who studied/ worked in Montreal, Canada and she flew to Jeddah for her Melka three months ago then returned to Canada and continued working in a hospital towards her masters in Radiology. She had come home three weeks before this night to prepare for her wedding and new life of marriage.
  This wedding was different from the normal weddings put on here, this was the first time I actually enjoyed a local wedding! I normally do not attend any wedding except those of our family but I made an exception for this bride as I was representing my daughter, her best friend.

   The vast majority  of weddings here are held in the larger hotels that have rooms for large parties or special party halls. The women are dropped off at the entrance to the hall and the driver and car leaves, it will be hours until they will pick up the women again so most drivers and women’s husbands/ sons return home.
  Upon entering the wedding hall we checked our abaya’s at the counter and received a number for the bag, abaya’s can be rolled up easily, so only a bag is needed but the more fancy halls will have hangers for each abaya, they could need over 300 hangers and the space to hang them. Some of the more cautious women will keep their abaya with them the entire evening, having it handy in case they need to cover in a hurry.
  The younger ladies will now head for the bathrooms so they can fix their hair, it’s been covered with the head scarf so will have flattened. They fix hair and refresh their makeup before going on to the party. It is through attending functions like these that the girls get maximum exposure and be seen by other women who are ‘looking’ for prospective wives for their family male members. I have been asked many times during weddings, if a family niece was married or engaged and the girl’s name.
  We entered the hall and are greeted by a few female members of the couple’s families. The mothers of the bride and groom and perhaps some of the elder ladies from the families will have seats at the entrance to the hall. They sit here most of the evening ready to greet the guests that will arrive.

  Inside the hall are many large round tables, each will sit 10 - 12 women and each is decorated with a centerpiece of flowers. Usually one or two tables will have the chairs wrapped with ribbon to signify that the table is reserved for families of the couple. When there are very elderly ladies special large arm chairs with foot rests are provided.
  Tonight, there were only a handful of ladies present, most likely from the direct families, so we had our pick of seats. I look for a table that is as far away from the sound speakers as possible!! Once the music begins it’s impossible to try to communicate with anyone, because the music is non-stop once it begins!!!! As with any gathering, a wedding is supposed to be a social function, so what’s with the loud music? It’s impossible to talk to the woman sitting next to you let alone the woman across the table.
  As usual the majority of women don’t arrive until late, we got there at 10:25 pm and until 12:30 am women were still arriving! I enjoy being early for family weddings as whenever women and ladies of our families enter they will come to greet me, this has other women wondering “who is that lady, everyone comes to greet her”, important am I?  he he
  Each table also has decorated trays of small finger foods as well as chocolates, there is a thermos of tea and another of the Arabic coffee that the women sip during the evening. Waitresses offer cold juices all evening as well, sometimes I can get a coffee, American or Turkish but very seldom.
  An aisle through the center of the ball room is decorated with flowers as the walk way for the couple, it leads up to a stage that has two large chairs against a back wall that is decorated in flowers. Tonight’s flowers were all white with plenty of greenery surrounding them.
   Flowers are a large part of all parties and especially during a wedding. The wedding hall will be decorated to the brides taste, I have heard of some families having fresh flowers flown in from Paris for their weddings!!! Each of the tables in the hall will have a small boquet of flowers as well and at the end of the evening many of the guests will take the table boquet home with them.

 As for music, the majority of weddings will have a women’s singing group hired for the evening. They are mostly black women from other countries and they chant songs all evening. The only musical instrument being tambourines of different sizes that are heated every so often to keep the ‘skins’ soft. Some of these women’s groups charge sr20,000 ($6,600) for the night!!!!

  Now-a-days more brides are bringing in DJ’s who play recorded music of the brides’ preferences. Most of the DJ’s are male so that they are in another area of the wedding hall, hidden from the women guests. But no matter what the music source, it’s LOUD and NONSTOP.
  A practice of old was to hire a Rabayah (ra-bay-yah), a female advisor to the bride. She was hired to inform the bride about each step of her wedding night, supposedly because the bride was very ignorant about that night, sure....... like all teenage girls I’m sure that the wedding night is the topic of conversation between them, all over the world. A rabayah was hired for my sister-in-laws wedding even though she didn’t want her and hated having that night, she avoided her and pushed her away telling her to shut up when ever she tried to talk.
  The rabayah would be whispering to the bride about each thing that was happening especially when meeting the husband for the first time. “He will take your hand....” and so on. The rabayah was the person who entered the bridal bedroom with the couple and help the bride to undress and settle down, whispering all the time about what was about to happen. She stayed close to the bedroom during the night in case there were any problems and someone was needed to talk to the bride.....
  The rabayah was the one to take breakfast to the couple the next morning so that the bride could avoid questioning eyes because the bride was inexperienced and shy. I have not heard of this practice today so I’m pretty sure that it’s been discontinued, much to the relief of the bride not to mention the cost to the family. The raybyah that my sister-in-law had, back in 1972 cost sr2,000 ($667.), I guess it was considered a status symbol too.
  Tonight, the brides’ mother is from Austria so the music on this night was a mix of newer Arabic, English and Austrian music. The bride’s mother got up on the stage and sang and danced to one of the Austrian songs. It was very refreshing and cute! She got a loud ovation when she finished!
  A bride will usually be in her room at the wedding hall early, getting pampered and primped. She will have a hairdresser come to fix her hair and perhaps a makeup artist comes to do her makeup. She prays that all goes well and her schedule stays on time, yeah  good luck with this one.
  During the evening girls will get up and dance (again for exposure), all the girls will dance because there are no strange men present but once the groom arrives only the women and girls of his family and sometimes from the brides family (if the family is open) will dance.

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  There will be a men’s party at another location, the men will have dinner, music and sometimes a singing group or person, and dancing.

 But the men’s party will end early, much earlier than the women’s party. The men of both families will stay to keep the groom busy until he is beckoned by his bride. In the case of the decision of both families, some of these men will escort the couple into the wedding hall.
  In our family weddings, the father of the bride and his brothers along with their elder sons lead the couple during the wedding march.
  When the groom gets a message, he will go to the bride at the women’s wedding hall with those who will escort the couple during the bridal march. The groom and perhaps his father will go directly up to the bride’s room while the other men will wait in a reception area. The groom will ‘see’ his bride, usually with her mother and sisters present.
  A woman photographer will have been hired for the evening and perhaps another woman to make a video to record the event. These two women (along with another to keep wires of the video equipment untangled) will be very prominent the entire evening.
  There will be many pictures taken of the couple and of the families with the couple. Photographers for a wedding are hired by the amount of pictures you agree to have taken. My daughters photographer charged sr2,000 ($667.) for an album of 40 (6” x 9” - 18cm x 22cm) pictures plus one 10” x 15” (25cm x 35cm) enlarged picture of her choice. Good money in this field but the hours are awful!
  After greeting his bride the groom will adorn her with the jewelry gift that he has chosen for her.

  Most men need the help of his mother or sister to put the jewelry on his new wife, his hands might be too shaky to manage the clasps of each piece, especially the earrings as all Arab women have pierced ears.
  Just before the couple is to enter into the wedding hall there is music played while the lights of the hall are dimmed, as a warning to the women guests, those women who want, can retrieve their abaya’s and cover all their radiance from the men’s eyes. If they are there, the women singers will leave the stage and go to the back of the wedding hall and be ready to perform the ‘zefa’ or bridal march. Tonight only soft music was played.

 As with ALL weddings here in Saudi, the best planned schedule is messed up and the bride never gets into her wedding at the time she had hoped for. Tonight, the bride wanted to be down at 11pm but as is the norm that was messed up for her. So finally at 1 AM the couple entered the hall but have added their own touch to their wedding march.

 During the zefa (zef-fa) or wedding march tradition has it that a singing group of ladies will chant while escorting the couple down the aisle. Now, each bride tries to find a ‘new’ way to make her entrance into the hall.

Music & Dancing is a sign of joy and happiness and is a part of all weddings in the Arab world.
	A group of men perform for the guests before the couple entered. From a family wedding, my picture.

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The bridal bouquet that my new daughter-in-law carried at her wedding. my picture

 At one family wedding the bride and groom climbed onto a horseless coach and were pulled around the entrance hall by four women before they disembarked and entered the hall. By now the men who had preceded the couple and were on stage waiting, got tired and both fathers sat in the couple’s chairs..... funny!!!
  On another occasion, small girls in very frilly dresses were tossing rose petals onto the walk way. Most of the handfuls were heading out into the audience, and among the rose petals were gold colored charms that wound up hitting some of the guests!!

 Tonight the bride came in from one door on the arm of her father and they walked to the center where the groom had come in from the other door. The father “gave the bride” to her husband, a touch from the west. Her father then left, and the couple walked the aisle alone. I was so happy to see that the bride was relaxed and happy, not frightened or scared.
  The couple walked the aisle with the two ladies taking photos and a video. Why these two women could not dress nicely was a wonder, it was a wedding and they wore jeans, oh well I guess they thought simply, that they were working.

This couple standing on their stage with some of the male family members while pictures are taken. from a family wedding, my picture

  Once on the stage the couple stood while there are more pictures taken, then the groom lifted the veil of the bride and more pictures. Having sat in their chairs they then exchanged rings, more pictures. Then a single glass of strawberry juice was presented to the bride, she puts it to the lips of the groom to drink then he takes the glass and does the same to her.

  The only problem with weddings is that they go so slowly, there might be 20 minutes between each stage and time just drags on and on...
  I kept thinking how funny if the red juice that they were sharing, were to spill on her white dress or his white attire!! The bride continued to smile and talk easily with her groom, I went to her mother and told her how beautiful and HAPPY she looked.
   During my daughters wedding, the glasses used for their 'toast to each other' were again used for them to drink during dinner. One of the glasses tipped over and broke, her husband said that this symbolized the union of two into one. Nice!!
  The bride had bought her dress in Canada and on sale, very cheap at only US$550. but if that same dress were to be sold here it would easily cost US$2,667!!! Most brides have their dresses made special for them because not too many dresses can be found here due to the cost of ready to wear bridal dresses. Also a bride wants her dress to be original and exactly what she wants. The sewing alone for a wedding dress BEGINS at $1.334 then add any the cost of hand sewing on of sequins or beads.

Brides are the same, the world over, wearing traditional white to symbolize purity. see picture

  My daughters dress material cost sr5,500 ($1,340.) and the sewing was another sr5,000 ($1,300.00), it was in the style of a fairy princess with a very full skirt and puffy sleeves, tiny bouquets of flowers were sewn on. How many people would even think of these costs, here, it is accepted and part of the wedding costs. A family niece brought her dress from Paris, an original costing sr75,000 ($20,000).
  The couple stood up and close family came to congratulated them and had pictures taken together. Then the couple went to the side of the stage and down to their cake, they cut the cake and each ate a slice they returned to the stage and danced together, this is not normally done here.

 At our family weddings, the men will dance and force the groom to join in with them. The bride and groom will also have a slow dance together. Perhaps the mothers of the couple along with a few of the sisters will also dance for the couple and get the bride to join in.
  This couple sat a few minutes more when the brides father came to then, he had returned to the hall and congratulated the couple, they took family pictures then the father took the groom and they left together.
  This is not normally done either but it was arraigned by the families, to give the women guests freedom with the bride. The women removed their black covers and were able to go up to the bride and congratulate her freely. We did the same and I told her how much my daughter had wanted to be there but she couldn’t because she was in Canada.
  Usually the bride and groom will then walk into the dinner hall and cut their cake, each having a slice from the same fork. The couple will walk along the buffet of dishes set out for the guests, inspecting? They will then sit at the table especially set for the coupled with platters of the main dishes and they eat together while the guests then follow and make their way along the buffet filling their plates with food.
  After the groom had left with the father of the bride, , the buffet dinner was opened, it was 2:15 AM and we were about to have a full dinner! I think people just tell the hotels or caterers, to make everything on the menu because every wedding party has so much of a variety!
  Usually a wedding will also have a huge tray of rice and in the center a whole roasted lamb, the buffet tonight had only tray of rice, for those who enjoyed lamb with rice but the majority of dishes were western, something for everyone.
  After dinner you then visit the desert/ sweets tables, there is always at least 15 types of western cakes and sweets as well as 10 types of Arabic sweets!
  At the dinner buffet I will walk the length ‘seeing’ what there is, then go back into line. I always take fish and shrimp and leave room for the deserts.....
  Many friends of the bride have stayed back with her, talking, dancing and having pictures taken. The bride, most likely, has already had her dinner at a decent hour!!!
  After dinner most of the guests will immediately leave, remember that it’s around 3 am!! Close family will linger on longer until early morning!! Some guests will take home the flower center piece and or the remaining chocolates on any empty table.
  Our family weddings usually have all the two families remain until the last guest has left when all the men come in and join us. We dance and mingle until 5 or 6 am!!!!
  Each bride and her family will hope that guests will continue to talk about their wedding and that certain moments will stand out, guests will be getting ideas for weddings to come.

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