Wedding Album

Hello

It's Jenny. Rob is typing a blog about the wedding, and my job is to insert pictures into the blog. Already I have done a poor job. Rob looked at how many pictures I down loaded from the camera onto the computer and gave me a disapproving look when he saw how many I had selected. He told me my job is to insert into the blog only a few pictures that highlight the wedding, so I will try my best.

A few nights before the wedding we went to the tailor to pick up all of Rita's decorated clothes for the wedding. The traditional outfit women wear to weddings is called a taksheeta, but I do not know how to spell this word. All the guests and the bride wear taksheetas. The bride's taksheeta is elaborately decorated. The fun part is that the bride changes her outfit many times through the night. The number of outfits she wears is a surprise to the guests and to the groom.

I borrowed a taksheeta from Rita's family so I could fit in at the wedding. Here I am with Rita's uncle and two little girls before the wedding began in the entryway of Rita's house. The taksheeta has enormous sleaves!Rob bought a jelaba at Jemma el fna square so he could also wear traditional clothing to the wedding. Here is Rob with Rita's uncle.


Here is Rita waiting for her father to take us to Fadli's salon to get our hair and make up done. She is wearing one of the new jelabas Rachid gave her as part of the dowry. With each jelaba he gave her a matching head scarf and matching sandles. The necklace is a gift from me. When asked what to bring as a wedding gift Rachid said "girl things" like make up, clothing, or jewelry. I felt jewelry was the safest thing to bring of the choices.

Here are her hands decorated with henna. All the women attending a wedding decorate both sides of their hands and feet with henna for the celebration.
Here is Rita sitting on her throne at the front of the wedding celebration. She is waiting for Rachid to come with his family bringing gifts for the bride (the dowry). After some time she begins to wonder where Rachid is. He arrived 2 hours late!

The band keeps all the women entertained while we wait for Rachid to show up. The band was amazing, and they kept us all entertained the entire night (from 11pm to 6am!)
Here comes Rachid and his family. Rachid's family is Berber, the people native to Morocco's mountains before the Arabs came. The Berbers still speak their own language because the Arabs inhabited the plains and created the cities of Morocco while the Berbers continued to live separetely in the mountains. The Berbers did adapt Islam from the Arabs. Here Rachid and his family are parading through the streets bringing gifts to Rita. Everyone one the roof with Rita was quiet because we could hear Rachid's family chanting and signing as the approached Rita's house.
The men in the white robes (in the picture above) are not part of the family. They are hired to lift Rita and Rachid (separately) and turn them around as the people at the wedding cheer for them. It is difficult to explain this with words. Here Rita is being lifted above the crowd by the men in the white robes and red hats. She waves at the crowd as they cheer for her.
Now it's Rachid's turn to be lifted and cheered for!

Here is the couple, finally together at the front of the ceremony. They are not supposed to smile. Rachid smiled most of the night though!

Rob and Jenny at the wedding! We made a big mistake by sitting near the lights. Everyone else was sitting far from the lights. We ended up with lots of bug bites :(

Rita is wearing a new taksheeta! There were many changes of clothes throughout the night. She wore four taksheetas and one western wedding dress!

There was lots of dancing all night! The band and the singer really got the crowd of women going (only women dance at Moroccan weddings). By 6am I was very tired!




When the sun rose, the band stopped playing. Rachid and Rita found Rob and I and said, "Let's go". We got into a car, drove away, and stopped to take pictures of Rita and Rachid on Avenue Mohammed VI (the current king).

After the pictures, Rita and Rachid dropped us off at the hotel. I can't imagine what the receptionist thought when he saw us coming in at 6 in the morning. Since we were dressed in clothes for a wedding, he might have known where we were. We discussed the wedding in our room until we collapsed into a deep sleep for the next 12 hours!