Al Ain- Day 5 Evening -Khalifa's Wedding

After a lunch with Abdullah, we went back to the hotel where I slept until it was time for the Wedding.

Here are a few things that I know about Arabic weddings: I think there are three parts. First an engagement where the families give their sons and daughters the rings and start arranging the formal parts of the wedding. This is pretty much like ours, except the bride and groom can only meet when someone else is around so no funny stuff happens. Then there is the Melka, which is the formal signing of the marriage certificate and all the paperwork. After this the couple is officially married. Between the Melka and the wedding the couple are allowed to see each other and get to know each other a bit better. Finally there is the wedding, which is similar to our wedding reception—a big party for everyone who can come.
I think there are huge misconceptions about arranged marriages in the U.S. People tend to believe that their way must be the best because that’s how they do it and how it’s always been done. One thing that has become really clear to me is that the only things we know about other people are the worst things. We get this in the news, in our gossip—the abnormal and bizarre become all we know about the rest of the world, and all they know about us.

The way it’s been told to me, when a man has completed his studies and has settled himself in a position, it is clear what type of family he will be able to afford. The parents begin to look for suitable wives and husbands within their class brackets. They meet the parents and the girls and choose the ones who seem like a good fit for their sons or daughters. After they have spent some time doing their research they show their son or daughter some of the choices they have. Then the son or daughter chooses whom they would like to meet.

Though the parents arrange the weddings, no one, at least in Emirate culture, is ever forced to marry someone they don’t like. There are stories about people who marry their daughters for money, or to someone that ends up treating her badly, but again, these are generally exceptions. If you think about it, if it were bad for people they wouldn’t do it, so the cases where problems arise must be far less than the times where everything works out for the best.

When you think about how messed up things can get in the dating world of America, it doesn’t seem so bad. American statistics put the divorce rate over 50%; in the Arab world it’s almost non-existent. I’ve seen more unhappy marriages in America than I can count so how can our way of courtship be better; in fact I would argue that America might be broken in this regard.

Anyway…

The Wedding

We arrived at the wedding around 8:00 pm. Meredith and our companion Lynn were both dressed in abayas and traditional garb. M father and I had on Khandouras and Goutrans and the entire traditional Emirate garb. We probably look pretty ridiculous to the common American, but I, for one, fit in so completely most of the other men were openly shocked when I spoke to them in English: “Salaam alekum.” “Hi, how are you?” Huh?? They said I looked Turkish or maybe Lebanese.

The wedding was at some amazing 5 star hotel (there pretty much are only 5 star and higher in the Emirates). The women were ushered through a small nondescript door into the women’s room. All of the women wear completely black abayas. Some people describe them as looking like big black tents; I think they look more like black ghosts. This covering is to make sure the other men can’t see them, because they are only for their own husbands. Most of these abayas, however, are lavishly detailed with all sorts of embroidery. These ladies, though covered from head to toe in black, are VERY high maintenance. They don’t come cheaply. Under these black sheets are lots and lots of insanely decadent gold jewelry.

We men parked the car and walked over to a patio where all of the men stuff was going on. Right away we saw all the people we knew and that was great. There were probably 250 people men there already, so I was glad to Khalifa on his day. I think I’m so used to people being so busy they don’t have time to talk, but it was still a bit early so he was there to greet us.

All of the little boys came up to us and they had their little guns with them. We were about to witness the traditional gun dance of the U.A.E. I’d rather just show the video I took, but I don’t have it posted yet.

Basically there were two lines of men, maybe 20 on each side. They each had these little canes, camel jockeying sticks or something, and the music started and they slowly began to bob. There was a man running back and forth between the lines getting the men into the dance. Then they started singing their song. After a bit, other dancers started showing up between the two lines and spun their guns. They flipped them around and spun around and ducked and dodged and all sorts of stuff.

The song intensified and other guys appeared with these flimsy swords. They started play fighting and doing duck walks and jumping like trout. Very interesting.

Then after about thirty minutes or so, the cal for prayer rand across the city and the music stopped so everyone could pray. We were ushered into a waiting room to be in the air conditioning and have refreshments. Every few minutes somebody would walk by and everyone would stand up and shake hands with him and then sit down. There was lots of standing and sitting.

After some time we were shown to the dinner table where I got to eat camel for the first time. Dinner was good, but I wasn’t too hungry because I was growing a camel baby in my guts from the milk I drank earlier in the week. Once dinner was over, that was it. The wedding was done—at least for the men. All said and done, maybe two hours.

We ended up standing around in the hotel lobby for another 2 hours waiting for the women, with no clue what was going on in there. Finally, we called my sister and said she had to come out so we could go. We got them out eventually and headed back to our hotel.

Now, according to my sister, the women’s area was a completely different story. There was belly dancing, cakes as tall as a man, swords, singing, lots of covering and uncovering, smoke machines, flower petals, and all types of food and drink. The brides, all three of them, each took about 20 minutes to walk amongst the other women showing off their dresses and makeup. I can only imagine what it was like. Obviously, it’s not the men who need to be impressed by a wedding; keep in mind the average emirate wedding is 80-90k dollars.