{"id":12,"date":"2012-07-13T18:50:23","date_gmt":"2012-07-13T18:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/?p=12"},"modified":"2012-07-13T18:50:23","modified_gmt":"2012-07-13T18:50:23","slug":"no-one-parties-like-a-moroccan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/?p=12","title":{"rendered":"No one parties like a Moroccan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a while since the wedding of my host sister but I have to talk about it and perhaps my forgetfulness will filter out the less important aspects.\u00a0 There is no set pattern for a wedding in Morocco, but in our family the celebrations began days beforehand.\u00a0 Relatives set up camp throughout the house and our host father led the adults in conversation and the children in games.<\/p>\n<p>On Friday night the real ceremonies occurred.\u00a0 This is called \u201cHenna Night\u201d and is when the bride and groom sign the marriage contract and are sung to with verses from the Quran.\u00a0 Only close friends and family attended, and the bride was decorated in intricate and beautiful henna patterns for luck and extra beauty.<\/p>\n<p>On Saturday we arrived at the wedding at six thirty at night and returned home at six in the morning.\u00a0 No one parties like a Moroccan.\u00a0 The ceremonies here were many but brief, and all seemed centered on flaunting the marriage as much as possible.\u00a0 (Since the wedding I\u2019ve even seen marriage processions in the streets.)\u00a0 The bride enters carried in an Amariya, pictured here:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14 alignnone\" title=\"image1\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/files\/2012\/07\/image1-300x224.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Throughout the night she wore five different dresses while parading around the main room or sitting at the wedding couch with her groom.\u00a0 Four flat screen TVs and two cameramen ensured we missed nothing.\u00a0 Somehow my host father and others managed to dance all night, while he also got Orion and I coffee so we wouldn\u2019t embarrass him by falling asleep.\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember how many courses of food I had, but it was over seven.\u00a0 Moroccans are usually rather austere, but I\u2019ve never attended something as beautifully hedonistic as this wedding.\u00a0 They aren\u2019t decadent, but they know how to party, perhaps even more than two American college students, and they dance a child-like, visceral dance of pure happiness.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/image2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15 alignnone\" title=\"image2\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/files\/2012\/07\/image2-300x224.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Traditional band<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/image3.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-16\" title=\"image3\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/files\/2012\/07\/image3-300x224.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Host Father Said and Host Brother Hachmi lead the dancing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a while since the wedding of my host sister but I have to talk about it and perhaps my forgetfulness will filter out the less important aspects.\u00a0 There is no set pattern for a wedding in Morocco, but in our family the celebrations began days beforehand.\u00a0 Relatives set up camp throughout the house [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.luc.edu\/eyeonthearabworld\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}