Rings: planet-saving and marriage-making

To enlighten you about earth, fire, wind, water, and heart:

Captain Planet, he's our hero!

Gonna take pollution down to zero!

He's our powers magnified,

And he's fighting on the planet's side!

We're the Planeteers! You can be one, too!

'Cause saving our planet is the thing to do!

Looting and polluting is not the way;

Here's what Captain Planet has to say:

"The power is yours!"

Oh, yeah - throwing it back to the nineties there.

Moving on:

I'm going to skip the "I'm a bum for not writing" speech and just go ahead and write.


Last night I got to do something fantastic - I attended an Arabic wedding! Besides that, it was a Muslim wedding, which makes it just that much more interesting. But let me back up a few weeks - I went to an Arabic engagement party. (Different couple.) An Arabic wedding is different from an American wedding, but an Arabic engagement party is... well, because we don't really have those in America, it's completely different.

As I understand it - and some of this information may be slightly inaccurate, and I'm really really sorry about that - after the engagement, the couple is technically married. Religiously speaking. They walk up the aisle, sit together on a raised platform at the front of the room, and sign a contract in front of a religious authority. And that's it. Sort of. The couple won't move in together or consummate the marriage until after the wedding ceremony. Some engagements are as long as two or three years. In very traditional relationships, this engagement period is actually much like what we would consider dating. Only after they're engaged are they allowed to go out together, to be alone together, things like that. The woman can take her hijab (headscarf) off in front of the man. The only knowledge I have of these things is secondhand. But about the parties, on the other hand - those I know about.

Both the engagement party and the wedding that I went to were gender-segregated. Interestingly, at the engagement party, they had a live feed running from a camera in the male room - but of course there was no camera showing the female room to them. Inappropriate. The groom spent time in there, before he and the bride (well, groom-to-be and bride-to-be) came into the female room (I'm trying to avoid saying ladies' room - it's a ballroom, not a bathroom) and walked down the aisle. This is where they signed the paper, and then they exchanged rings. It's not like an American engagement, where the girl gets a diamond and the man gets... well, nothing. Why is it that Western men don't have engagement rings? Oh, that crazy thing we call culture. Anyway, they place the rings on the right-hand ring finger. Yes, right. We'll get to that later. And everybody's happy!

Besides the rings, the groom has to buy a lot of gold jewelry for his bride, and there's a small ceremony of him putting it on her at the engagement. Imagine trying to put earrings into someone else's ear. Yes, funny. The groom's mother had to help him out. After that we had cake - engagement cake. Rasha told me that that's a little bit abnormal, so I'll skip it for now and take care of that with the wedding itself. Once the groom left, dancing began. The bride(-to-be) dances in the middle of a ring of women clapping or dancing, or everyone just kind of generally moves to the music, or whatever however, and it's fun. They tried to teach me how to dance, with a very questionable amount of success.

And on to the wedding itself. I'm not entirely sure what the men do during the wedding, but when Rasha and I arrived, they were outside the building with a band playing traditional Arabic music. There was a lot of noise, lots of blanks being fired into the air, you know, the usual. The bride and groom were standing on a platform at the front of the crowd next to one another. The groom wore a suit, and the bride wore... something. It was like a white tent, something to cover up the wedding dress underneath. It had long, wide sleeves (think angels here) and a white hood (try not to think KKK). The hood was pulled down so that the men wouldn't see her. It would be proper for her to take off the overcoat only once inside the building with no men in sight. I'm not sure if she wore gloves, but if she didn't (and I don't think she did), then her hands were the only part visible. We didn't stay outside long, and we didn't look much - we were just trying to find a way to dodge around the crowd and get into the building.

To preface all of this, an Arabic wedding is mostly like an American reception. We didn't sit in chairs and listen to a set of vows or a miniature sermon. It was a banquet hall with round tables all around the room, and yes, like America, there was a groom's side and a bride's side. (We were with the bride.) I should put in a word about dress code: surprising. Because it's a women-only gathering, the rules are quite different from those for everyday life. Women can, quite literally let their hair down, by taking off the hijab or removing the veil. Besides that, they can wear dresses that are open at the top, with shoulders and whatnot. The big rule, though: no knees. No knees. Seriously, no knees. I don't know the historical/religious/cultural reasoning behind why knees are so very private, but they are. (This, by the way, makes shopping for clothes to wear to a wedding very difficult.) It was strange to see some of the people I know without their headscarves on; my initial reaction, word for word, was "You have hair?!"

So, there was the hurry and hustle of everybody arriving and getting comfortable. Then they announced that the bride and groom were about to enter, and there was the bustling to re-cover before the groom came in. This next part was the most ceremonial. I'll do a compare/contrast thing with American traditions:

The dress: The bride wore white. Just like the weddings you've been to, with a veil and everything.

Giving the bride away: Same here. But the groom's father comes, too, and both of the fathers walk away, leaving their children together.

Exchanging rings: Part two. The bride puts her hands together, fingertips touching fingertips, tent-like, and the groom slides the ring from the right hand to the left one. And the same thing the other way around. So yes, both the husband and wife have rings on the left ring finger in the end, but only one ring for each.

The cake: The same, but better. The bride and groom cut the cake together, just like in an American wedding. They hold the little cake server between them, and delicately slice in... oh, wait, I forgot to mention - they use a sword instead.

The toast: The thing where the couple's arms end up in a pretzel and they're both drinking champagne? Well, sort of. Except without the pretzel and without the champagne. Because it was a Muslim wedding, and alcohol is forbidden in Islam, they drank orange soda. Insert a Kenan and Kel joke if you want to. And they had straws - each held up a glass with a straw in it and the other drank. I don't know if all of this is strictly traditional, but I think it's cool either way.

After the groom leaves, then there's a general uncovering and lots of fun dancing. See above, but more of it. There were definitely some other less-than-100% traditional moments. Take the now-ubiquitous baby photo slideshows, for example. After a while, the friend-type guests leave, and only family members remain for - well, I'm not really sure what. I saw a car covered in beautiful flower arrangements outside, so I assume that the wedding ends with a driving-away moment. A very classy one, tin-can-free.

In short, the cake was good, the dancing was fun, seeing friends was wonderful. But more than that, I got to see two wonderfully happy people who were thrilled to be getting married. It's inappropriate to describe what any woman was wearing at the wedding, but I can say this: the bride was beautiful, as if she glowed. Congratulations, Salsabeel and Belal!