Celebration

It is a dramatic step in everyone’s life path when he or she takes a decision to engage with his or her partner from the other gender. Many things affect the matching criteria, but this is not our theme here to discuss. Most importantly, celebration, the event itself, is the scope of my coming few lines. Celebration is not restricted or refrained to certain religion or ethnicity; however, all people around the world practice the way of celebration based on their culture and beliefs.

Islamic-wise and traditionally back home, a wedding party is the most important event in one's life to celebrate for many reasons. Those are: a gathering opportunity and reunion for all family members, event of happiness and entertaining for kids, and more importantly, a method of announcing marriage as per Islamic values. The party takes different dimensions from one family to another with a little variation, but, generally, has the same basic scenario. To illustrate, I will talk below about my experience as a typical example.

Initially, arrangements for the party took place a few months earlier. Having the two families sit together to put everything related on the table for agreement, such as venue, the number of attendants, who is going to be invited from both sides, timetable of the event and so on. Upon agreement, every part has to finish the task required on time before the date of the event.

My wedding event took 2-3 days. Although the main party was on the last day, the two days before were interesting, too. Many families hold the wedding on weekends, Thursday and Friday for being the official holiday in my home country. The rational behind that is to allow the people attend while being out of work. On Thursday, which is called the henna day the bride sat in the middle – the whole night - to be ornamented using the henna dye while her relatives sang and danced around her; it was the night for women and at the family level only and it  took place at her parents’ house. On the other hand, men gathered from both families in a tent or a hall, if leased, to celebrate by dancing and singing folklore songs. Juices, desserts and snacks were served during these separate occasions. This action might be done one day before for the guys.

Then, we came to the wedding day, usually Friday, when many things had to be done. Many people prefer to do their own catering while others book with a catering company as was in my case. I booked a big hall with a catering service included that was enough for all invitation cards distributed from both sides. After the Friday prayer, at 1:00 in the afternoon, invited people started to arrive at the hall for lunch meal which was Mansaf (cooked lamb meat with yoghurt and rice) by tradition. Nonetheless, food choice selection depends on the desire of the two families. Some people choose an open buffet with a variety of food selection. After that, people left to come back again at night for the main party at 8:00 pm. Meanwhile, the close family members from both sides gathered for the parade before they marched to the hall for the party. The parade gathered at my parents’ house with an ornamented vehicle with flowers and wreaths for the bride, which moved toward her parents’ house for the bride to get into and then the whole parade marched to the place of the party. During the party, pictures were taken, a huge cake was cut and songs were played while we were dancing together. Again, juices, desserts and snacks were being served during the party as well.

Finally, upon completion the two hours in the hall, I took my bride out and left the place toward the hotel, which we booked in advance. The other invitees also left after the end of the party.