On Wednesday night, we went to an Egyptian wedding.  We were honored to have been invited!  Before the wedding, I started asking around to see what we should expect, what we should wear, and what we should bring.  As with many things in Egypt, if you try googling “Egyptian” anything, you have to sift through all of the articles about ancient Egyptian anythings to find the relevant ones.  It’s challenging, but what can you expect for a place with 5,000 years of history.

Anyhow, I decided I needed a long skirt, which I finally found at City Stars.  It was surprisingly not an easy feat.  I think shopping for a tube top and a mini skirt would be easier at City Stars with its western stores like Bebe and yet NO Banana Republic.  But I digress.

At 8:00pm we headed to the wedding with Youssef.  The wedding was held in an intersection of alleys lined with apartment buildings.  It was incredible!  There were bright bright lights, and colorful lightbulbs strung from building to building in the alleyways.  There was a big stage in center with a full band and stacks of speakers.  The music was really good.  There were several vocalists, a keyboardist, a guy on the drums, and someone manning all of the electronic equipment.  I really enjoyed it!  I’ll see if I can post a clip of the band for everyone to hear.  Everyone had their cell phones out taking video.  It was really neat!

There were lots of little bistro tables covered in brightly colored tablecloths, and we were immediately seated at one near the stage.  There was a really yummy spread of food on the table in an elaborately festive, two-tiered platter.  I loved the homemade potato chips.  They were absolutely delicious.  There were also chickpeas, these mystery beans that I really like but don’t know the name of, lots of beautifully sliced fruit including miniature apple-like fruits that I have never seen before.

Shortly after we sat down, I was swept away by a female family member of the bride and taken around the corner where all of the women were dancing.  I had no idea what was going on, but I was happy to have someone take me under their wing and explain things to me.  Everyone was dressed in colorful clothing with beautiful, sparkly makeup.  I love eye makeup, there is no hiding that, and I love beautiful eye makeup.  These women are skilled, let me tell you!  I can’t imagine having the precision to carefully line my eyes with gold glitter, but it looked stunning!

People seem to really like Americans here, and everyone I was introduced to wanted to know where I was from and if I liked Egypt.  A lot of them had sons or relatives in the States and told me how they wanted to visit.  Conversation was pretty limited since I don’t know more than ten words in Arabic and no one spoke much English, but amazingly, we were able to communicate well enough.

There was dancing, and perfume, and singing.  There was a processional of women with a pan full of a waxy substance in it with candles that my new friend informed me was for henna.  I never saw the henna completed, but it was neat to see how they prepared the pigment.

Periodically, I returned to our table with Brandon, only to be swept back to the festivities again.  This one’s a little blurry, but here we are:

It was such a wonderful celebration, and we were thrilled to have been invited!