Oman Wedding

On Friday the landlady asked me to join her to her sister-in-law's sister wedding ceremony. As the ceremony was for women only, Andres again had to stay at home (and babysit the boys). We were driving to the outskirts of Muscat to one very big hall where the wedding took place. There could be some 200 women at least. The landlady said that the weddings are very big here, in her wedding there were 400 people, but there can be up to 700 people! Quite crazy for us (because in Estonia it is considered to be a big wedding when there are 100 people!). We arrived around 9pm, the DJ (woman of course!) was playing music, mainly Arabic music but they also played “Waka Waka” by Shakira, younger women were dancing while older women were just sitting in the tables, watching and talking. All the women had very festive and sparkling clothes, at least half part of them had uncovered hair with grand hairdos, lots of make-up, stunning western style evening dresses, lots of jewellery and high heels. I was wondering myself about for who they have dressed up – there were no men (but well, I am European and we dress up for a reason – for men, ha ha!). In this big hall there was a stage that was nicely decorated and there was also a couch for the bride. At 10pm the bride arrived, she walked very slowly through the hall to the stage (like we use to do in the church, just that here she had not father sending him and not groom waiting for her in front of the altar). Otherwise, she looked like any other western bride with her white dress, veil and flower bouquet. When she had reached the stage she was put sitting on the coach and she remained there for rest of the evening, some people only sometimes went to talk to her or take a photo, but not everybody (no congratulating ceremony). Then people went to crab some food (it was buffet with cold and warm dishes and desserts; no one big wedding cake), ate and left. I was asking the landlady that when could the bride eat and she smiled and told me she had eaten before the ceremony. We left around 11pm. The landlady said that when all the guests have left then the groom arrives to take the bride to the hotel. I also asked about the change of family name and there is not any, the bride keeps her family name as it is and when children are born they get fathers' family name.

It was very interesting to experience and see Oman's wedding and yes, it was rather different from our traditions.