Chapter 10: A Royal Wedding

A Muslim Royal wedding - black robes come off to reveal the seductive, the sexy, the elegant & the vulgar

Muslim men and women celebrate marriage in separate ceremonies. The men gather for a grand dinner after isha prayer and leave early. The women's wedding party is a festival with music, dancing, singing and at royal weddings, a banquet.

We are on our way.

A hundred or more Rolls Royces and limousines block the grand driveway entrance to King Khalid's Palace. As usual security guards in green berets and khaki check each carload of guests and wave them on to park.

I follow Princess Abtah and the princesses joining what look like a flock of blackbirds descending on a garden full of glow-worms.

The huge Palace gardens are lit up like fairyland. Candles burn on all the small round tables covered with black lace cloths. Tiny coloured lights decorate the trees. The night is still and humid and this lavish scene is set under a blue-black velvet sky.

Before my eyes a transformation takes place. Black robes come off to reveal the seductive, the sexy, the elegant, the overdressed, the beautiful, and the vulgar.

Four hundred princesses and their relatives and friends are here tonight. In Saudi Arabia there are twelve thousand royal princesses.

Jewellery sparkles on their ears, throats, fingers, arms and in their hair, as brightly as their wide pearly-teethed smiles. Hollywood's Zsa Zsa Gabor must be their role model!

Long black hair sways over plump bums. Perfume wafts by me as the women pass.

It is a glittering affair. Bosoms and cleavages and bronze bare legs are on show with slinky gold and silver lamé dresses. WOW! I am astonished … and not a man in sight!

A raucous ladies' band strikes up. Sexy ladies dance with sexy ladies, their hips swinging, their hands twirling to the gutsy vibrant beat. Ladies sit together, stand in groups together, wander around together, gossip together and eye one another…a glitzy fashion show. Dressed up children run naughtily between tables chased by distraught nannies. Waitresses in black suits with long skirts, fifties black court shoes, hair tied back in dark gauzy scarves, and no make-up, parade around offering guests crystal goblets of mineral water on silver trays. Dates and chocolates sit in silver dishes on each black lace tablecloth.

I have lost track of Princess Abtah. Feeling strange and out of place I sit down at the nearest table, next to a lady wearing the popular gold lamé dress. She has a sophisticated air about her.

"Excuse me," I begin, "where is the bride?"

"She'll be here at twelve," comes the reply in excellent English with a slight American accent. I am relieved to meet her. Haifaa is a Saudi whose husband lectures at Harvard University and their son is at public school in England.

A western woman is never lonely for long amongst Muslim women. I feel I have known her all my life. Haifaa remarks how slim I am.

"Saudi women are always trying to diet. I'm cutting out salt and sugar." She pushes a large bowl of chocolates out of reach with a sigh.

The waitresses are on parade again, this time with highly-coloured drinks on the silver trays. I sip fruit cocktail through a multi-coloured straw and close my eyes and in my imagination taste Dom Perignon champagne. Delicious!

The band stops. Light flashes in the distance. Haifaa stands up. The official photographer is taking pictures of the bride's arrival.

I quickly walk behind the band, through the trees, to a vantage point nearer to the bright carpet laid for the bride to parade up to the steps of the Palace. Muzak plays softly. Giant viewing screens in the garden relay her entrance like a rock concert.

Here she comes, an Arabian princess, the granddaughter of the late King Khalid, on her wedding day. Young, demure, a little uncertain of herself, her cream veil over her hair and shoulders but not over her face, wearing a princess line, long-sleeved, high round collar, simply cut, cream silk dress with her beautiful long black hair woven in strands of jewels and pearls. She carries a bouquet of huge white trumpet lilies.

Two small dark bridesmaids follow her, overdressed in frilly short Shirley Temple numbers and wedge-heel black leather shoes.

The bride has never met her bridegroom before and, not being used to appearing in public and undoubtedly a virgin, the evening must be an ordeal for her. Lamia tells me at her wedding she was so nervous her legs shook when she faced the hundreds of people but Saudi princesses are accustomed from early childhood to parading down long rooms to present themselves and they walk with lovely poise.

I see the bride walking alone on the purple carpet as long as a church aisle and up a grand flight of steps to take her seat in front of the Palace.

Close family come up first to kiss her. The two radiant mothers fuss with her veil and pose for photographs. Guests, all women, one by one come up to greet her. The garden buzzes with excited chatter and the giant screens relay 'The Bride Show.' An extravaganza!

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