weddings

At one point do they become a disaster? This weekend I attended two lovely ceremonies for members of my family. The first involved my cousin who's wedding was very last minute. They had originally cancelled it because of some difficult news. We had it at my aunt's. Tens of us crowded in a townhouse in Centreville. It made me appreciate the simplicity of having close friends and family, to not worry about wedding photographers, a venue that doesn't require a contract, home cooked dinner instead of questionable catering, and all that other racketeering that goes on with weddings.

The second wedding I went to was unexpected. I thought it would be an engagement party, instead it turned out to be the actual exchanging of the vows (the reception won't be until December). Again, close family, no acquaintances, or people crashing just for the dinner ... it was nice that it was simple and not too frilly.

Luckily these were both Muslim weddings so there was very little complications. Both services used the same imam. But what do you do when you've got two different cultures? For example what if Asian (South-Muslim) marries a WASP-y type person? No alcohol at the reception first off. Second, how do you agree on a cleric? A Muslim family will never accept a Christian or Jewish cleric, has to be an imam. So then what do you do? Also there are other interesting issues. For example, parents who are divorced. If you have two families who cannot stand eachother at all. I'm sure these are old questions that have solutions for them, but since I've got two colleagues who've got weddings on the mind, I've been avoiding this stuff. Apparently I'm next on the chop block. The only conclusion is to elope!!! Haha, not that I'm in any danger of that since there are no prospectives (and the idea is still abstract to me).