The Ugly Duckling Goes to a Wedding Party

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Family weddings are all the same, same people, same songs, same food, only the bride and groom differ. My father’s family is a big one, so I have more cousins than I can count but still, all weddings are almost identical.

Female guests in my family’s weddings, as is the case in many Muslim weddings, are usually seated separately from the male guests, this is because many female guests wear the Hijab and can’t take it off in front of male strangers so to give women the freedom of wearing (or taking off) the dresses they want and baking their hair into cakes or growing it into trees, they separate them from the men.

This results in a very girlie atmosphere, and by girlie I don’t just mean dresses, makeup, jewellery and flowers girlie, no I mean jealousy, fakeness and gossip girlie as well, so here we go, another Ugly Duckling list;

Females you find in any Jordanian wedding:

1. The mother/sister of the bride: bossy, all over the place, busy as a bee, usually wearing a very sparkly dress with sequins of all colors, you can find her giving orders to the wedding photographer or the DJ and running around from table to another making sure everything is okay. Don’t get upset if she yells at you because she usually has no idea what she’s doing and most likely she won’t remember a thing she said after the party is over.

2. The aunt: sitting on a table close to the dance floor, with an “I’m not liking this” look on her face, although she’s enjoying every minute of it, criticizing the girls is what she’s there for, “her dress is too revealing”, “her makeup is too slutty”, “she shouldn’t dance when the groom’s still here” whatever she sees, she discusses.

3. The bride hunter: you know the type, she’s searching for the perfect wife for her son, she wants a girl who’s beautiful, educated, modest, kind and most importantly, obedient, oh and willing to marry her pathetic excuse of a son who lets his mother choose with whom he shares the rest of his life, also found very close to the dance floor because she needs to see girls dancing and showing off their, ahem, assets. She will push you if you stand in her way, and tap on your shoulder and tell you to move if you block her vision.

4. The “fishing for a husband” mother and daughter: the mother brings her daughter to attract the attention of number 3 above, the girl is dressed up in her best outfit, wearing really high heels because number 3 looks for a tall girl for her son for some reason. If you’re a woman and you say hello to the mother, chances are she’s going to bring her daughter and introduce her to you. While the girl acts shy and innocent, she probably has her eyes set on a certain guy already.

5. The outcasts: sitting on a separate table away from the rest of the family, usually hated because they’re either quiet, don’t like to participate in gossip sessions or unsociable (I’m usually with those because I never talk, this blog is different case) they enter the hall quietly and leave quietly and then numbers 2, 3 and 4 above start talking about how arrogant they are and how they think they’re better than everyone else (we don’t by the way, but now that I think about it, we kinda are better :P).

6. The little ones: oh God, girls under 12 years of age trying to act like grownups and have really long tangled hair, they dance between tables and get in your way whenever you try to move, their mothers will give you a lethal stare if you try telling them to move so try to find another route to wherever you’re going.

7. – 12. The opposition: all the 6 above only on the groom’s side of the family. The only thing different about them is the names. Oh and they hate 1-6.


**Update: apparently the lovely Whisper was at a wedding party recently too, for more on weddings click here :) told you Whisper, el 2loub 3nd ba3dha ;)