A Morsel of Marie's Musings...: Iram's Wedding...

We've been so fortunate this year to be invited to a Muslim wedding. What a great way to soak up the culture and spend our last week in Bradford. I'd been searching all over town for a showacameze for absolute ages. Finally a couple of weeks ago I found one to wear that I liked a lot. Not only though, did we have to find the dress, but we had to find the rest of the outfit. This included, BLING…so earrings, shoes, bangles, hair accessories, and a giant ring. What a huge undertaking. We found ourselves in the last week panicking about the things that we didn't have yet.

On Thursday night we went the mendhi night. We didn't realize that if the invitation says that it starts at 5 o'clock, NO ONE would show up for over an hour later. As we were told, "We're Asian! It's Asian time!" Once everyone showed up it was a real treat and culture experience. Typically, the Thursday night is a fun party night with drums, music, mendhi and dancing, but the bride- Iram- had had a death in her family during the same week so they were mourning. Thus, there were no drums, but they still had the traditional mendhi service, and of course- amazing food.

As the evening progressed we learned that we would be taking part in the ceremony. Iram was sitting on a swing type thing at the front and after many other things took place that I didn't fully understand, they said that we would be going on stage to sit with her and take part. We went up in our group and we all individually put henna (with a peacock brush) onto a leave that Iram was holding in her palm of her hand. Then we rubbed a bit of oil into her hair. After that we fed her a piece of fruit and gave her a smooch! All the family and friends did this. I felt of Iram though. I'm sure she felt like an over-stuffed oily-haired girl who was holding a leaf. During this process she didn't show much emotion. This turned out to be a theme of the week.

Then on Friday we had a local girl, Zaara do our mend for the wedding. She "doesn't really do it" as she said, but she did a fantastic job. She said that if she enjoyed doing it more that she would do it more. I was so impressed!

And then on Saturday, the big wedding part happened. This was the day that Iram had the most Bling on and boy, did she look dazzling! Her dress must have been soooo heavy because it was full of jewels! This time, we showed up over an hour and a half late and we appeared to be right on time. When the groom arrived, there was drumming and as he approached the stage, Iram's girl cousins were asking money from the groom before he could sit by his wife. We heard that a groom could pay thousands at this point. Just depends on how pushy the sisters/ cousins are.

A few other teachers from school were there so we ended up sitting all together. We ate more amazing food there. (I have really gotten much better at handling the spiciness.) And they had serious intimidating lights and camera/ videocamera that videoed us eating and looking like confused Americans. I guess this is so Iram can remember the week and how awkward we looked.

After we ate we went up on the stage and gave Iram the gift that we had given her. Then lots of family went up and everyone was handing over lots of money to both the bride and the groom. I think the groom may have made back his money that he had spent earlier. Lots of pictures were taken. In most though, I think that the bride is meant to look sad because this is her last time with her family. She still looked beautiful!

The whole week was an amazing experience and one that I will never forget. Iram was so kind to invite us and let us be a part of this important day.