Superexciting: tonight I get to go to my first-ever Emirati wedding! It's for a local colleague who is 25ish, beautiful, UK-educated, doesn't cover, and whose family apparently owns half of Oman (she drives a pimped-out Cayenne, has a different Chanel bag for every day of the week, flies to Singapore with her mom once a month for wedding dress fittings, etc).
Yet, mind-blowingly, it's an arranged marriage to a guy who she's never met outside of the engagement and a few supervised visits. When I asked her about it, she was very apologetic - like, "Oh, that must seem really weird to you, right?" Which... well, I don't know if it seems weird. I'm so back-and-forth on the issue. Sometimes I'm like "Shit, I wish my parents would find me a cute, smart, well-educated, well-off guy from a good family for me to marry!" And then other times I'm like... well, we can all imagine the arguments against arranged marriage, I probably don't need to enumerate them here.
But yeah. It's at a really nice 5-star hotel (obvi) and the men and women are in separate ballrooms for the entire night, meaning that the woman apparently go ALL out with sexy dresses, over-the-top makeup, etc. that they could never wear in mixed company - total validation for the claim that women dress for each other, not for men! I'm so excited to see some of my female colleagues who I have only ever seen in abaya/hijab get all tarted up for the occasion - I suspect that alllllllllllll the eyeliner I have in my makeup bag and alllllllllllll the oversized bling I have in my jewelery box will not be enough to put me in their league. ;)
Will report back!
