On a Good Party and Civil Marriage

You’ve got weddings and you’ve got Weddings. Last night was one of the latter, with a capital W. I left right after they started serving breakfast to the guests, and the party was by no means over then.

Three Dutch bridesmaids

By that time our Dutch Sharif had gotten lost somewhere on the parking lot (but we know better; the local ladies just could not resist this Dutch & Egyptian mixture), Theo tried to leave with someone else’s dinner jacket, Andre was raiding the bathrooms for the lovely towels, Morticia had appropriated a case of Chablis that no one was allowed to touch, Deb lost her shoes and received worried phone calls from her son ("Mom, where ARE you? Do you know what time it is?"), Tamara finally got her picture with Nancy Ajram, Rick was steaming on the dance floor (so was his Dad, by the way), and Fester confessed that he’d love to eat a biscuit with me (Dutch expression).

The lovely couple, Sarah & Hisham, and the 3 Dutch bridesmaids.

Yes, the Dutch were out in force, thanks to the lovely mother of the bride, a fellow Dutchie. Of course no one can party like the Lebanese, but we showed them last night that you can’t ignore the Dutch either.

The mother of the bride; A Dutchie (of course)

A busload of Dutch came over all the way from Holland, as this was the wedding of the daughter of one of our Dutch in Lebanon. And I think that after tonight they are all going to stay. They’re all figuring out ways to rent an apartment here, so they can live the way the Lebanese live. Or the way they think the Lebanese live. Because all of this glitter and glam is of course just a layer of gild on top of a not so beautiful society.

Some of theDutch mail contingent, Rick, Sharif & Theo

A not-so-beautiful society because the absolutely lovely couple, who have been together now for a long time, was not allowed to marry inside Lebanon, because of their different religion. They had to fly abroad (Cyprus it is these days, for most Lebanese civil marriages. You get a complete package deal these days for under $900), to tie the knot, because our own government does not recognize them as a couple within their own religions.

The bride & groom with a certain Nancy something

Both of them – luckily – couldn’t care less, but it is sad to see that so many of our most beautiful and brightest, who couldn’t care less about the confessional divide(s) that slowly but surely wrecks this society, have to go abroad in order to get married.

Morticia Addams & Uncle Fester also showed up.

But who cared last night? The ladies came out in force with their fantastic hairdos and dresses and jewelry and dainty little handbags, and the men in dark suits made it look like a regular Mafioso convention. A totally star-studded event. .

The Addams family & friend (Fester, being quite the ladies man, was kept in check by an ever watchful Morticia who, I might add, apparently forgot to wax. Tsk tsk tsk.)

Lebanese weddings usually are star-studded events. They spent amounts on weddings that in Holland we'd spent on the down-payment of a house for the new couple. Or the whole house. Not over here. Weddings come complete with the ‘zaffeh’, the band, the singer and the flower arrangements. I’ve been to weddings in Holland, and they are usually very proper and meek affairs. Uhuh, not over here.

Another lovely double Dutch & Lebanese mixture (still single, but you’ve got to be fast)

Thank you guys, for showing the Dutch that this IS the place to be! There isn’t much coherence to this post, but I’m afraid I only slept 3 hours, I’ve got a lunch date somewhere in town in 4 hours, I've got people coming over for dinner and I lost my voice. Joke, thank you for an absolutely lovely evening! You still have 3 daughters; so when’s the next wedding?