I was invited to a wedding!!!

I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time and I was invited to a Saudi wedding.  I was with a few friends and they were talking about going to a wedding the next week.  One of the ladies looked at me and asked me if I would like to go to a wedding.  I said "YES!!". She said that she would check with the mother of the bride and see if I could come.  I thought that there was probably little chance because she had already invited two other Westerners.  It was five days before I heard from her.  After that amount of time, I thought for sure it would be a no, but she said yes.  I have to say that Saudis are very generous with letting lots of people that they don't know, especially Westerners, come to their weddings and engagement parties.  This is the third wedding event that I have attended where I did not know the bride or the groom or anyone in their families.

I asked the ladies if they would be wearing evening dresses.  I have still not purchased one here.  (I am sure that as soon as I do, I will never be invited to anything again.  :)  )  My friends said that they would be wearing short (knee length dresses).  I had brought a couple of nice dresses, so I was set!

An interesting thing about the wedding is that the mother of the bride was from Mexico and the father Saudi and the mother of the son was Latina (I can't remember which country) and the father was Saudi.  There were a significant number of westerners at the wedding. 

The invitation said that the wedding would start at 9:30 pm.  So I was picked up around 8:30 pm by a lady who had a driver.  We went over to the other compound to pick up the lady who invited me/us.  It turns out that there were two Venezuelan ladies from that compound who had been invited also.  When they had called a driving service to bring them and pick them up from the wedding (probably after 4 am), they were told it would be 700 Saudi riyals (which is $186).  It was ridiculous!  So my friend asked them if they wanted to go with us.  These ladies were so much fun.  

The wedding was up the Red Sea coast, about 45 minutes away.  We got there around 10 pm and as we walked up to the main entrance, we began to realize that we may be the first guests there.  You had to check your abayas and cell phones.  They put all of our cell phones in a pretty burgundy glassine bag and gave my friend the number.  It was "# 1".  We asked, "Are we the first guests here????".  They smiled and nodded yes.  As we walked into the ballroom that would eventually hold 350 guests, they were still setting up, putting flowers on all the tables.  So, since there were no guests there yet, my friend asked if we could take pictures.  At the wedding itself, we would not be able to take pictures.  So, we got our phones back and took some pictures. 
This is walking up to the entrance:

 

 Inside the foyer where we checked our abayas and cell phones:

Here we are:

Then we went inside the ballroom:

Here is the grand staircase.  The groom came down from the top left and the bride came down from the top right.

 

Here is the stage where everyone danced and the end of the bride and groom's walk:

After taking pictures, we sat at a table.  We were the only ones there for a good hour and a half.  We kept joking that we were number one!!
Eventually people began coming in and the music and the dancing started.  We all danced but not as often as the one of the Venezuelan ladies.  She just could not sit down.  If she couldn't get us up, she went to the surrounding tables and got the Saudi ladies to dance.  She is such a kick!
I think that it was around 2 am when the bride and groom appeared!  Of course, we had to get our abayas and scarves on.  They slowly made their way down opposite sides of the staircase, then walked down the main staircase, then down the runway to the stage.  She was very beautiful.  He was wearing a nice white thobe, shemagh (head covering) and robe.  They looked in love.  The story is that they knew each other as children.   As the photographer was taking pictures of them, the side doors of the ballroom opened and the buffet was ready.  It was incredible!  An entire table of salads.  A table of entrees including hashi (camel meat), a long, long table of desserts.  It was delicious!  When we came out of the buffet, the bride and groom were gone. 
Then after eating, it was basically time to go. 
I got home around 5:30 in the morning!  That has not happened in a LONG time.  :)

Everyone there was very welcoming to us.  It was a really interesting experience.