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Everything you always wanted to know about an Arab wedding…

29th June 2009 by Helena 4 Comments  

Here are 10 key points you need to know if you are ever invited to an Arab wedding.

1. The music will be LOUD and I mean so loud you can barely talk.

2. The bride will appear extremely late (both to the pre-wedding party and the main event)

3. There will be a lot of food.

4. You will drink mainly sweet tea.

5. There is no possibility that you will ever over-dress.

6. You won’t see a bloke unless you stay around until the very end (around 1.30am) when the groom appears.

7. Everyone will be very nice to you, but you will only be able to tell that by their smiles, as you can’t really hear what they say.

8. You will have to leave any cameras or mobiles with cameras at the door.

9. There are no boring speeches.

10. If you are invited, you are expected to go, it is very rude not to. And you should, it’s good fun. Added to which it is possibly the only time I have ever been to bed in the early morning and not woken up with a hangover.

girls-going-out.jpg
Girls in dresses borrowed from Mahara and Salama before the pre-wedding partyhouse-lit-up.jpg

Our house lit up (Ali’s house is on the left)
me-getting-dressed.jpg

Me getting ready

leo-and-bea.jpg

Bea and Leo ready for the party
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: Abu Dhabi, blog --> Tagged With: about, always, everything, wanted, wedding

4 thoughts on Everything you always wanted to know about an Arab wedding...

  • Maria says:
    1st July 2009 at 10:28 pm

    Helena,
    Thank you again for your blog, as enjoyful as ever. I must admit though I was sad to hear you were leaving Europe and mooving away to Abu Dabi. Your lifestyle in France was such an inspiration to myself and my husband, that we got into holidaying in Languedoc & Luberon in Provance and were even looking into buying & renovating a house there.
    However, I would like to pay you a compliment, you look fantastic! Obviously life in your new country treats you very well. And well done for discovering the new frontiers!

    X
    Maria

  • Denise says:
    2nd July 2009 at 5:46 pm

    Helena, you look lovely!

  • mimi says:
    7th July 2009 at 12:04 am

    Wow, you look fabulous! I see no sign of the “Abu Dhabi stone”??

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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