The Main Event … Part I

On Friday, Raminə’s wedding day was finally here (well, the half of it that was sponsored by our family, the groom’s wedding wasn’t until Monday so that’s when the deal was really sealed and she went to live at their house – except that really all the paperwork had been signed long ago so they have been legally married for a few weeks, not the point…). 

We got up early to get all of the food ready to be sent to the wedding palace.  Thankfully, once a big truck came to pick everything up, and the last few things were put into cars, and the huge refrigerator that can be pulled by a car went away, our work for those sorts of preparations was done – which meant that it was time to prepare ourselves!  Raminə went off to a salon in the city first thing in the morning because they had a few other brides to get ready that day and a lot of work to do for each one (nails, hair, make-up).  Nuranə, Gülnar, my mom, and I went to the village hairdresser that I used to go to when I lived here (where the chickens would be picking at my feet while I got my hair cut).  She has a new set-up inside the basement that is her salon which was nice to see because her husband had promised to create a space for her when they got married (before that she had worked at a salon in the city but he wouldn’t allow her to continue).  We had talked about going into the city to a real salon but decided to stay in the village because of the price – everyone was talking like a salon in the city was so expensive which I guess compared to the village it was, but still compared to what you’d pay in the US it was nothing (they said the salon would be 10-15 manat but in the village she charged us 3 manat, in case I haven’t mentioned it recently, I really do not understand pricing in this country AT ALL).  I told her that I wanted an updo, but besides that didn’t care at all what happened.  Well the first thing that happened was my hair was pulled probably as tight as it’s ever been (I had immediate little headaches where it was really bad) and the second thing was that suddenly the hairdresser was rummaging in this plastic bag and came out with a huge ball of fake hair to use as the basis of a huge bun (my real hair covered the fake so you couldn’t see it but this was the first time I’ve had fake hair!).  Then, for the real fun, I had her do my make-up too because I knew that I couldn’t do an adequate amount of qəşəng eye make-up myself.  As I expected, after all this was done I looked like a completely different person – I literally had people doing double-takes as they realized that it was me!

Raminə came home soon after we got back, already in her dress and everything.  I was totally thrown off by the fact that Etibar (her husband – I can say that now because it’s official!) brought her back from the salon which means he saw her in her wedding dress!  I didn’t tell them for us that is bad luck because I didn’t want to make them paranoid.  Raminə immediately wanted to begin a photo session around the house and in the garden, getting very angry with me that I wasn’t quite dressed and prepared myself!  But I quickly finished getting dressed and we set out into the garden to take pictures with trees and nice green backgrounds (they came out really nicely, I’ll put some up on Facebook when I get back because, as you might have noticed, I try not to put pictures with people’s faces on here since it is open to the public and that makes Azerbaijanis uncomfortable).

We were ready way too early and then had a lot of time to stand around, but finally Etibar and his family arrived.  Etibar was riding in the special bride car of course (it is the groom’s responsibility to find a friend with a qəşəng car to drive the couple around).  The women of his family had to come in dancing (there is a band that follows the groom around from his house to our house) with the xonças (really pretty wrapped baskets) of presents for Raminə and we, the women of our house, joined them in the dancing outside.  Then Etibar came into the house to where Raminə was waiting.  The videographer (who had already been around filming various family members saying their wishes for the couple’s future) filmed everything and after a few more speeches and the new jewerly from the groom’s family was put on Raminə, they were on their way to the wedding palace.

All the dancing in front of the house

Etibar coming into the house and us following him, notice all the video people up front - it's a serious production!

When we arrived all the guests were already inside.  My mom began to go through and welcome everyone and then decided that as the big sister-in-law I needed to welcome every table as well so she started the process over, dragging me with her.  After everyone is settled and the couple has made their grand entrance (complete with a champagne toast for them and the aunts who accompany them except that none of the women drink it), it was time for the speeches to begin.  The general format of an Azeri wedding is that for the first 3+ hours, various family members and close friends are called up to speak and then music is played where they begin to dance and then anyone can join them (but especially their immediate family or friends will come).  The order of the speeches is designed to show respect to the elderly members of the family and closer relations before more distant people, therefore the first people called were the grandparents.  Following the grandparents, they called the parents of both the bride and the groom.  As many of you know, my host father died before I came to Azerbaijan so my mother before I came told me that she wanted me to come and stand with her at this point (as my host sister Nuranə told me, I am her strength, which really meant a lot to me).  This also meant that I also got to make a speech first thing.  Thankfully, I was prepared and had written something in English and translated it to Azeri with Tamilə müəllim’s help.  Unlike other times where I’ve made speeches in Azerbaijan and people either can’t hear me or are assuming I am speaking in English so they just don’t listen, people did actually pay attention this time and I even got some good laughs!  Everyone’s favorite part (which everyone has been quoting back to me since) is that at one point I said “Etibar, sənin böyük baldızın kimi…” (“Etibar, as your older sister-in-law…”).  I went on to say that he needed to treat my sister well and make sure she had everything she needed (although most people were laughing too much at the sister-in-law part to listen) and Raminə says that she was nudging Etibar at everything I said saying “Did you hear that? Are you listening? Because I’ll call her to come back from America if you don’t do what she says!”

Giving my speech

Besides my speech, I literally spent the entire rest of the wedding dancing.  As the immediate family, it is sort of our job to dance with everyone, and I took the responsibility quite seriously I guess (plus it was a lot of fun!).  I barely sat down (only having time to eat one piece of kabob, and even that was in two sittings!) and, not to brag, but apparently it has been the talk of the village since.  People keep coming up to me and saying that everyone is talking about how much and how well I danced.  I tell them that I am dancing better than before because this time I was really dancing from my heart.

Dancing :)

All the dancing so you can see the whole wedding palace

One of the best parts of the wedding for me was that there were several other Americans there as well.  First, the majority of the Peace Corps Volunteers currently serving in Tovuz were in the last group that I helped to train before I finished my service.  Since one of them lives in our neighboring village (specifically with my mom’s childhood friend/my student’s family), he was of course invited which turned into all the others wanting to come as well.  Additionally, my friends who work at the American Embassy in Baku, Eric and Evangeline, were able to take the day off work to drive out.  They had come to stay with my family before when I lived here and my family has visited them in Baku, so they were really excited to have them at the wedding.  All the Americans did a good job of getting out there on the dance floor and the gentlemen did a good job of not getting too drunk on all the vodka toasts (they moved to the groom’s friends’ table about halfway through the wedding because one of the volunteers knew someone there).  They also made a toast at one point after which the band played a few “American” songs, including Gangnam Style, and turned down the regular lights so that they could put on colored “diskoteka” lights.  I was worried that things might get inappropriate because you can’t exactly Azeri-style dance to those songs and I didn’t want any of the older guests to get offended (or to get angry at the lack of Azeri music), but it seems to have been a real highlight of the evening that people were talking about, so that was also successful.

The Americans making their toast (and a big thanks to Eric and Evangeline who helped me with photographs so I could actually be in some during the wedding!)

Alright, I know I’ve missed a bunch of things, but I think I have written something sufficiently long!  Basically the only other important thing to know was that it was probably the first wedding that I stayed at literally until the last minute (and then Raminə had to come back to our house until after the groom’s wedding).  It was a super fun night – probably one of my favorites ever in Azerbaijan – and I’m super glad I was able to come back for it!