A New Emirati Wedding
In the United Arab Emirates, on the Arabian Peninsula, the traditional wedding seems to be changing, at least for some people. A typical Emirati wedding is extremely lavish elegant, expensive, and huge. There might be 1,000 guests at the three-day celebration for the bride and groom. The groom has to pay these bills, and after such a wedding, the couple begins their marriage in terrible debt. Each wedding seems to be bigger than the one before it. Several years ago, the government decided that things were getting out of hand-out of control-so they started a Marriage Fund. This is money for young Emirati men who agree to marry Emirati women, not foreigners. Many of these men agree to have a group celebration. At one such group celebration, at which the UAE president was the guest of honor, there were several of the components of a traditional wedding: a lavish feast of exquisite food and entertainment by Bedouin Dancers waving their swords. The difference? There were 650 grooms. It was, one person pointed out, “a symbol of a new spirit of economy.”