A Saudi Wedding

This week I was invited to go to a Saudi wedding. No, I was not invited by the groom, or the bride. I was invited by a friend who happens to know the groom and asked if I and another friend could come along. He said yes.

Now there a couple of things everyone should know about Saudi weddings. One, they start at midnight. Two, the are during the week. Three, there are two; one for the groom and the men, and another for the bride and the women. Yes, like all things Saudi, the weddings are segregated by gender. Which in my mind begs the question, and you were invited by the groom?

As it was explained to me, it is not uncommon for people to bring their friends to a wedding. Most weddings want to be large, and this is one of the few occasions that people (or in this case women) can gather, dance and be merry. However, I was also told that I would need a dress. So we went shopping.

Traditionally I'm a big fan of shopping, but shopping in Saudi is not quite the same (for reasons I have mentioned before). This time, however, I was faced with what seemed like an insurmountable problem, I wanted a simple dress that would not go above my budget. Alas, it was not to be. The dresses in all the store we went to (and we must have visited at least 10 stores) were horribly over the top (think sequence, glitter, feathers and bling... all on one dress) and excessively over-priced. So I decided to wear one of my old dresses. Fine.

We arrive at the wedding (fashionable early?) at 11:30pm. We turn in our invitations and are ushered inside a room behind a partition. Once inside, we take off our abayas and hand them to clerk. I hear what I think is some kind of door bell, it is not. It is a woman "announcing" the arrival of guests to the party. She's loud.

We are among the first to arrive. The tables are set (23 to be exact). The all have large center pieces, coffee, sweets and hours d'oeuvres. There is live music (four women singing to what I though was recoded music) and a stage. Add to this, the waitresses (yes everyone in the room is female) who are coming around with a bunch of other little appetizers and sweets.

However, that is not the first thing I notice. In fact, I am too caught up in all of the colors! I guess since women here are forced to wear black all day, they go all out when it comes to these events. Pink, gold, blue, white, red, purple, yellow and every color in between, and what's more they are all dancing! Yes, I'll admit it is still a little weird to me see only women dancing (with no men anywhere to be seen) but what is more this is a (dare I say it?) sensual dance! It's kind of like Colombian cumbia with belly dancing added in.

Now here is the interesting tidbit. The women are all dancing on this stage that basically resembles a cat walk, and the mothers are watching. I am told that basically the mothers are looking to see who among these single women would be able to "satisfy" their sons (because obviously dancing must be a proxy for something else) and be marriage material. So, a wedding is also a matchmaking session. Very interesting indeed.

The party continues, with lots of dancing until suddenly (at like 2am) everyone starts to put their abaya back on. The lights dim. And finally the bride arrives, with her husband (thus the need for abayas). They walk down the cat walk in a spot light while everyone claps and yells their well wishes. The couple stand there for a while just kind of looking out at the crowd (behind the lights). And then it's time for the groom to go and for dinner to be served (at 3am). By now, however, my friends and I are too exhausted and decide to skip the meal which consisted of a huge buffet of all kinds of things.

Clearly just another day (or night) in Saudi!