"The wedding will start at 8:30"

“The wedding will start at 8:30,” she said. “Please be there on time.” She emphasized the latter phrase at least three more times before I hung up the phone.

On the surface, the request was simple enough. After all, I come from a region of the world where wedding guests are expected to arrive approximately thirty minutes before the event is scheduled to begin. There have been times when I’ve been scolded for not arriving a full hour before the scheduled time. So one would think that arriving at an Egyptian wedding “on time” would be no problem.

But this ignores the fact that this request went against everything I’d been told about Egyptian weddings. Although weddings are typically scheduled to begin at 8:00 or 9:00 at night, I’d been told that they never start on time and I ought not arrive any less than an hour or two AFTER the scheduled time! So it would seem that I should wait until 9:30 or 10:30 to arrive at the wedding, but the fact that she had placed such an emphasis on the time confused me.

I asked a couple fellow expats at work what I should do and they were as confused by the emphasis on timeliness as I was. Thankfully one of our senior scientists is an Egyptian woman who seems to always have the answers to these questions. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: If a wedding starts at 8:30, what time should I arrive?
Her: Between 9:30 at 10:00.
Me: What if the bride specifically asked me to be on time?
Her: (pause to think) Who’s wedding is it?
Me: The bride is a friend of mine, the daughter of my landlady.
Her: So do you know many people who will be at the wedding?
Me: Not really, just the bride and her immediate family.
Her: If it was a wedding where you knew a lot of people and wanted to spend time socializing, you should go at 9:30 or 10:00. If you aren’t going to know many people, wait until 10:30.

As my colleague seems to always be right in these situations, I took her advice and planned to arrive at the wedding at 10:30. However, while sitting in traffic en route to the venue, I started to worry – What if I was too early? Would I be sitting in a corner alone as the only non-Arabic speaker in the room? What if I was too late? Would I be an embarrassment to my friend? Would she be offended? Would I have to make up for my tardiness by staying until the very end of the event and not return home before 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning (on a Tuesday night when I would have to work at 7:30 the next morning!)?

I arrived at the hotel and entered the ballroom, and one of the first people I saw was the father of the bride (the husband of my landlady). He was thrilled to see me, stopped in his tracks, led me to a table at the very front of the room and sat me at a table with the bride’s grandmother and great aunts. As I sat down, I was relieved to see that neither the bride nor her new husband was seated on the stage at the front of the room. I was still early. So I sat and carried on a limited conversation with the older women, smiling and attempting to bridge the gap between our languages.

Within ten minutes, the lights dimmed, the music came on, and the bride and groom made their grand entrance. My timing really could not have been more perfect. The events of the night began and continued through the night. After the typical events of a wedding reception (signing the contract, exchanging rings, the first dance, cutting the cake, etc.) and lots and lots of dancing, everyone sat down to dinner, and I decided it was time to make my escape. It wasn't easy to sneak out - I had to say goodbye to about half of the wedding guests and make numerous excuses as to why I didn't need to eat a full meal of lamb, turkey, beef and fish - but I made it home and glanced at my watch as I walked in the front door. It was 2:30 in the morning - just three and a half hours before I would get up for work.