The déjà vous wedding syndrome

Anyone here feeling this ?

I can't believe how boring weddings are, nothing new, nothing interesting, all the same, and unless one of the people getting married is your friend or close family you really like, it is extremely annoying, to be more exact its like time torture !! of course I am talking about non-mixed weddings simply because I do not go to mixed anymore.

Here is how it goes for those of you who have never been to a Jordanian wedding, or has never seen the men's version of the typical wedding, first you go the grooms house, you wait there for like 30 minutes until everyone gets there, of course there is always an important uncle who is late for 15 minutes that everyone has to wait for, when that person comes, its 3 minutes before you start hearing him screaming why is everyone else late !!

So you get into your car, to start the death ride, the Holocaust of the roads, the Jordanian version of "Need for Speed - The slow drift" its about 20 cars, and another one containing the groom, all 2o cars are fighting to get near to the grooms car, contain it in a tight circle of cars so he does not get away, causing mass panic among the other drivers, nearly causing your own death or sometimes the death of the groom ... and on the other side the grooms part is to stay calm, or his driver, and not get thrown over to the side or pavement and arrive safe to his brides house, To add to the tension and distract your opponent you can honk at him, and use your rights, you can win a bonus and add a siren to your car which is a good thing, of course there are joint challenges everyone has to deal with some and not all are traffic lights that cut you off, taxi drivers that mingle in to see the bride or groom, trucks who have the habit of cutting the whole group in half, and other surprises better experienced at first hand. ... you know in the old ages you had to fight a dragon and the army of the evil king to get to your woman, nowadays it tougher, getting through the streets of amman is not easy at all, it needs a real prince ... "prince of the roads" I mean.

So you are now at the brides house, the groom gets out of the car, and here it gets really strange if they have not pre-agreed on the customs ! does the groom get the bride from her room? from the second room? from the house door? does her father get her to the outside door? whats the position of the grooms mother ? Do I really care ? hell no I don't ... but if things do not go right and someone has a crazy uncle who thinks customs are holy scripture, you might be dodging bullets or breaking up the fight between the various cousins and the other people who just feel like a fight !! but if everything goes on good, you have to go to stage three.

Stage three is like stage one, now the groom has to drive his lady to safety, but the rules have changed, and the challenge is bigger, the opponents are now family men who has a nagging wife who wants to see the bride in the car, taxi drivers have a bigger role too since they too want to see the bride and smile at her with 1 front yellow tooth, the funny thing is the bride is usually covered up with a lot of white stuff over more white stuff over more white stuff, and her head is so heavy with spray and makeup she can barely look up, but all that is part of the game, its like protecting her from the unknow !!

Now you get to the wedding place, which might be a hotel, a wedding hall, or even the front yard or roof of someone related to the groom, both genders go their separate ways after what is usually a terrible experience of listening to someone who thinks he can sing, grooms friends and family dancing in front of them, the girls head is still covered with layers and can only see their feet, and you are usually standing back there, away from the crowd, clapping your hands every time the grooms mother gives you the look !! you know the look, right ? the look which means if you do not come and dance i will make sure you are in my prayers, the other prayers not the good ones.

Now here is the real boring part, you go inside the hall, in which there are 2 options, either there is dancing or there is not, in other words, it is either really disgusting or dead boring, my idea of fun never included guys dancing like Fifi Abdo to be honest, I am very OK with the dabkeh, that is great, but when a guy has a belly the size of the tsunami wave, and also moves the same way, you are better not dancing like Fifi Abdo . The second option is 100 men sitting on tables, discussing work and complaining about the wife that does not pick up so he can go home, this goes on for a couple of minutes until you get a nice drink of gas-less Pepsi, or tasteless juice, and a while after that comes the plastic tasting cake with the 0.001 nano-gram fork !! I wonder how they can make forks so light, and bendy, and metal !! God bless china.

The last stage is waiting for the groom to come down, which might take from 20 minutes to 2 hours depending on many factors, when people get frustrated and start to leave, the groom family get alerted of possible "Nqout" loss, "Nquot" is a financial add given to the groom from his friends and family at the time of the wedding, its like saying: dude, you have got your self in real trouble, take this, its not much, I hope it easies you financial pain somehow :(

When the groom does come down, he starts going from table to table, getting congratulations from the people, and also collecting the "Nquot", now this is a sensitive issue, there are many customs on how to hand over the money, sometimes the father or brother is behind him, handling the "Nquot" by having it safely stored with him, he might get in to an advance stage of seeing who paid what so he knows what to pay in his turn when the time comes, some grooms have 2 people behind him, one to collect, and one with a paper and pen writing the names and amounts !! I am serious and I swear I am not kidding. The other issue is whether you should put the "Nquot" in his pocket or in his hand ... the general rule is that if it something you are proud of, put it in his hand, it will you points, if it is a small bill, it is better in his pocket, you can later claim it was the only JD 50 that was there.

The very fast thing is saying your goodbyes and leave, which might take up to 10 minutes since you have to kiss anyone, and everyone in the way, but it is a happy thing since you are almost out.

Now you might read this and laugh and say its sounds interesting, but think about it this way, try doing these things at least once a week for thew whole summer, and you will know what I mean.

In my wedding I will win the street fighter game and make the bride come get me in her car, I will be hiding behind a tree, jump in her car and just go crazy while everyone else is still planning for their counter attack.

And Mubarak for all those who are getting married, I hope you invite me, I know your wedding is going to be different and great :)