More Qatari Weddings

It is apparently "Wedding Season" here in Qatar as I just got back from another wedding. A friend of mine told me about the wedding today and asked if I wanted to come along. Seeing as it was the brother of an acquaintance of mine, and I may have met him once, in Qatar that's close enough familiarity to attend their wedding! (like I said before, Qatari men's weddings are open to pretty much any man) It's all about congratulating the groom and his family after all.

So we got there about 8:00 pm. This time instead of a tent it was held in a local sports hall. The floor was covered with carpeting and when we arrived there were already many guests milling about.

We saw the acquaintance of ours so we approached him first so he could introduce us to his father and his brother (the groom) at the receiving line. The groom and his father were easy to identify as they were wearing white thobes with traditional black bishts. My friend and I then found a place to sit down and chatted for a few minutes then dinner was announced.

Roast lamb on a platter of rice, the traditional meal for Qatari men's weddings. No cutlery, as usual. At least this time I was able to take a picture of the meal. In the foil containers was harris (difficult to explain, kind of like a wheat porridge with finely ground chicken in it). So everyone sat down to eat. Eventually other men such as employees from the sports club and labourers who happened to be nearby also came in for a meal, some joined my friend and I at the platter we were sitting at.

After we finished eating my friend and I washed our hands, said our goodbyes, and left. We were there less than an hour, which is perfectly acceptable in Qatari culture. As an example I also found out from my friend that he attended another wedding that evening before coming to this one, so he attended two weddings in three hours.

One thing that was different about this wedding was that there were no singers or musicians. My friend said that not all weddings will have them, especially indoor ones as they can be quite loud (go to my previous blog post and click on the videos for an example)