Qatari Wedding

Last Friday, June 24th, I went to a Qatari nationals wedding, and it was a great experience. The wedding takes place in tents in the desert or on empty land towards the outskirts of the town. There are two different celebrations, the one in the tents is attended by the men and groom, and then at the hotel the women and the bride have a celebration. The two different parties never celebrate together and there is no formal walking of the bride down the aisle or any of the aspects that are considered traditional in a Western wedding. After the men celebrate for a few hours it is common for the groom and all of his close friends to go to the hotel. Once outside of the hotelthe friends of the groom watch the groom as he walks alone into the hotel where he then meets his bride and at that point they are officially married and their marriage begins.

So now that I mentioned what a traditional wedding in Qatar is like I want to talk about my experience at the wedding. It was amazing while we were pulling up to the wedding, because most of the cars parked outside were Porsche's and Land Rovers, all parked in the sand in the outskirts of Doha, I don't know why  I didn't think to get a picture of it. Once we entered the tents it looked nothing like a tent on the inside. The floors were covered in Persian rugs, the air was a nice moderate temperature, tapestries hung from the walls, and beautiful chairs lined the entirety of the walls. The whole time was full of conversation, normally there is sword dancing at the weddings from what I hear, but unfortunately the grooms grandfather had passed away a few weeks prior so he didn't have the normal allotment of time to set up his wedding.

While we were sitting in the seats and having conversations, men would come by serving Arabic coffee, tea, and treats. I learned after a while that if you simply hand your cup back to the gentleman he will pour you more tea, what you have to do is if you are finished shake the cup before handing it to him, which signifies you don't want anymore. Everyone was extremely friendly and talkative, and the most common question was how do I enjoy the weather with a little laugh following the question, they were very laid back and friendly conversation, I loved it.

 After a while of conversation, we were all moved to a separate room where dinner was being served. Dinner was served family style, with a huge plate of lamb, eggs, and rice being put done on the middle of each table. You ate it by pulling a piece of meat off of the bone with your hand, then grabbing some rice with your hand, followed by squeezing it all together in the palm of your hand, and lastly pushing it to the tip of your fingers to eat. No forks, spoons, knives, or plates were used. One of the Qatari nationals told me that it is actually healthier to eat it with your hands, because the salt on your hand from your sweat kills any potential bacteria in the meat. They also told me

 that usually no tables are used and instead everyone sits in circles and eats together, it was a great experience. Once we were all finished eating something quite interesting occurred. Before entering the tent at the beginning of the evening I noticed that there were a lot of non-nationals sitting in chairs outside of the wedding tents and not interacting with anyone else at the wedding, I found it slightly curious but shortly forgot about it after entering the tents. It turns out that the nationals invite the poor of the country in to eat with them during the dinners at weddings. So once we began finishing our dinner, I noticed a lot of immigrants entering the tent, and

 began sitting and eating the food. I was told the reason for this is it is a night of celebration so everyone deserves to eat well including the poor. It was an amazing gesture of kindness and something I didn't expect to occur. It would be the equivalent of a fairly wealthy family in the US inviting the homeless in to eat with them during their wedding reception, something I imagine never occurs, where here this occurs at most or all of the weddings.
After dinner we all returned to the larger main tent, and were served more tea, coffee, and deserts. I talked to a national who was telling me about his road trip from Qatar to Egypt which is a journey I wouldn't

 mind embarking on someday! A little after this there was a professional poet who was telling the family history of the groom in poetic form. I unfortunately couldn't understand since it was in Arabic. After this family members of the groom gave speeches and remarks about the groom, which was followed by laughs and claps from the crowd. This was more or less the end of the night, shortly after the speeches the grooms cousin drove up in an extremely expensive black and gold Porsche and zoomed him away to the hotel to be with his new wife. It was an extremely amazing experience and I'm glad I went!

                                                       Random Photos of the Wedding