THREE Weddings in TWO Days

This weekend, as the title suggests has
been a very eventful weekend!!!! Probably the most interesting in a very long
time!!!!  Can you believe it! I got to experience, Three different weddings
in 24hours!!!!  These weddings were extremely unique, since the three were
of different social classes.

Wedding ONE

This was of, what I may call an
acquaintance.  The high rich social class.  Everyone was mega dressed
up, and the wedding reception was held in a Grand Posh Place.  The Food was
fantastic! A massive area with about 10 big tables with a total of 100 or more
plates!!! I did not even get to taste half of the food there was there. 
One extremely amazing thing, for an Egyptian wedding was that there was alcohol
secretly served.  There were not on display but secretly hidden in sports
bags which Tom and I luckily discovered.  The bride and the groom were
obviously the center of attraction, the bride, who got her dress from either
Paris, New York or Thailand (cannot remember) looked glamorous.  Cameras
were all over the place filming the two, which was shown on a big screen for
everyone to see!!!  A DJ was what you may call the 'chair' of the evening,
and the bride and groom danced all night (how they managed I have no clue) and
the people stood round them in a circle, dancing and clapping and doing this
funny sound the women do on special occasions.  Unfortunately I missed the
grand entrance as we were stuck in traffic, but apparently the bride and groom
were welcomed with fireworks and a big ceremony.  Very grand reception, but
not much fun, and not too impressive.  I guess everyone had a reputation to
preserve and did not let themselves go.  The area was massive, and although
there were over 800 people it seemed as though there were much less.

Wedding TWO

This wedding was different, the families
were from a middle social class.  It was not the actual reception, but it
was the mosque wedding.  For one's information, the bride and groom are not
officially married until they have had their reception.  This couple (the
bride, one of my work colleagues) decided to get married by the mosque but will
not have their wedding before a year's time! Thus they are not allowed to live
together or do anything alone!!!!! Strange ha!

Anyway, this ceremony, in my opinion was
much more interesting than the wedding of the night before.  We were in a
mosque, seated in a circle, with not more than 50 people.  The ceremony
took about 20mins, with the fathers being the center of attraction (the bride
did not have a father so the uncle was his substitution)  The fathers sat
round a table, with the 'priest' and some other guy, they gave out their details
and signed a contract saying that they will give their children to each other. 
The priest says a couple of prayers to which only the men in the circle replied,
and then the fathers shook hands with a handkerchief over their hands on which
there was the names of the couple, thus symbolizing the joining of the two
families. After that they distributed sugared almonds and chocolates!!
Definitely very different from our weddings!!!! And although I did not
understand a word, definitely very interesting.

Wedding THREE

This wedding was definitely the best of
the three.  We were not invited to this, but we sort of gate crashed. 
Anyhow, Tom and I decided we wanted to go for a walk and buy something to drink. 
On the way we saw these bright lights and loud music and decided to see what was
going on.  It was a wedding of the poor people, thus done in the streets. 
We walked in from behind this massive stage where the sister and mother of 
groom were sitting, and as soon as they saw us they invited us to sit down next
to them.  At first we hesitated as it was pretty rude to invite ourselves
in, but the people kept on insisting.  It was amazing! mega chaos, poor
people running all over the place, almost naked belly dancers, people screaming
and shouting, people jumping on the stage and being thrown off, Tom and I were
in total shock!!! the funniest thing though is that this woman the sister of the
groom insisted that I go up on stage and greet the couple!!! She kept on
insisting so I agreed to do it!  It was nice to let yourself go for a bit,
and nobody knew me anyway so why not!!!! I haven't had so much fun in ages! The
woman was super friendly, and in broken English and Arabic we communicated and
explained the wedding to me, although I could not understand half of what she
said!!!! She wanted my number so she could invite me to dinner and to her
house!!! but, stupid me I was scared to give her my details and told her I have
no phone.

The rest of the events were painting our
apartment which finally looks nice and clean as well as hanging out with Mongy
which I love doing\!!!

I have loads more I would love to write,
but I guess I could keep it for next time!

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