Dancing Rice and Azeri Vows

Liam and I went to our first Azeri wedding this weekend. We were told to be prepared for loud music and copious amounts of food. We got both.

The bride and groom arrived at the Leyla wedding hall in a decked out Mercedes. This is one tradition that I think must have Soviet roots because we saw "wedding cars" all of the time in Kazakhstan. The wedding party all hop in cars, decorated in fluffy white ribbon, and drive around the city. People lean out of the windows and yell and the cars are always honking.

I should note at the beginning that the entire wedding is video taped. But not just for posterity. Instead there is a live-feed of the wedding that is broadcast on eight flat screen televisions across the wedding hall. So most of the evening you find yourself watching on television what is happening ten feet in front of you. Also, the video cameras are not wireless so there is a man who looks alot like a news-camera man following around the bride and groom and he is followed by an assistant who is holding the wire. I must have tripped over that wire at least five times throughout the night.

We sat down to a table (inexplicably with the groom's mother) that was simply showered dishes of food. The mentality here is excess food means wealth and well-being. (I once read about an Azeri woman who moved to London and was embarrassed when she had dinner at an Englishman's house and he only served a few courses--she thought maybe he was really poor.) On the table were dishes of chicken, Russian salads, blinis, caviar, lamb, cheese, cold meats--you get the idea. The food takes up so much room on the table that there is barely room for your plate.

For the first half hour a band quietly played music as the guests started to make a dent in the piles of food. But then, the real music started. And it was L-O-U-D. All conversation ceased and we began to mime to each other, "Can you please pass the bread?" or "My ears are starting to bleed."

But the upside to the music was the dancing. I love Azeri dancing. I took this video early in the night. The men throw their arms in the air while they kick their feet while the woman have a more delicate arm movement that is reminiscent of ancient middle eastern dancing.

Later in the evening there was some kind of strange ceremony that involved fire and dancing plov (which is a type of rice dish). Men holding white torches walk two by two into the wedding hall--kind of like an honor guard. Following is a man holding the plate of burning rice which is swayed from one side to the other and presented to the bride and groom.

At the end of the ceremony, the live-feed video camera has the bride and groom "artfully" behind the flames coming up from the plov. I know fire has quite a bit of symbolism in Azeri culture but based on all of my cultural references, a picture of someone in flames isn't something I would associate with marriage (although I'm sure some cynics out there certainly equate marriage with burning in flames, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the message that was trying to be sent).

After eating as much food as possible and trying to keep up with the dancing, we went home with ringing ears and full bellies.