The Wedding
"With this ring, I thee relieve of a bunch of BS you believe about yourself."
Not to brag, but I’ve been to a lot of weddings.
One of my first jobs out of university was as a wedding photographer, which means I spent every weekend for the better part of a year arranging veils, holding bouquets, being inserted into intimate family moments, and staying on top of rigorous prep-arrival-walking-down-the-aisle schedules. Later on I had my own wedding, which was pretty chill by North American standards, but still took not one but two wedding planners to keep on track.
I thought I knew about weddings.
I do not know about Turkish weddings.
6 days before the poet’s brother’s wedding, we arrive at their parents’ place.
Over the course of the week, the house fills with guests from afar. The bride and groom arrive, the bride’s best friend, the bride’s sister and her partner. An assortment of cousins and aunts, and so many uncles I can’t keep track. Phone calls come in from relatives saying, “We’re coming but we don’t have a place to stay!” and the poet’s parents leap into action to find them housing.
Even we are lovingly kicked out to make more room. We stay with friends of the family, whose apartment is on the top two floors of an art deco building with a view of the sea, in a beautiful old corner of the city that could pass for old Beirut. Their 19-year old daughter has the most covetable collection of high top Converse I’ve ever seen. Her mom, whom the poet refers to as his adopted sister, is younger than me.
I casually drop these facts because this wedding has amplified something I’ve been been struggling with since I arrived to Turkey. Being an unmarried, child-free a woman in your mid-forties is unruly enough in North America, but here, where so many traditional beliefs still run deep, I’ve been struggling to… place myself. For example, this week, I don’t “belong” with the bride and her late-20s/early 30s friends. Nor do I feel on the same level as the moms and aunts, especially the ones who have children who are adults themselves. Even the hunt for the dress was an existential journey into my internalized ageism or denial thereof. Does this one make me look old? Does this one make me look like I’m trying to look young?
On good days, I let it all go.
On bad days, I feel like everyone’s cautionary tale.
The morning of the day before the big day, we’re back at the poet’s parents’ house. The poet comes to find me.
“There’s going to be a… kind of… bachelorette party here tonight,” he says.
I purse my lips, willing back comments about strippers and penis-shaped straws.
“What… kind of… bachelorette party?”
He shrugs, and says what he’s said about everything wedding-related.
“How am I supposed to know?”
At this point, a text from the municipality comes in. Heavy downpours are expected tomorrow. “Be wary of floods, lightening, hail, landslides and strong winds.”
Mayhem erupts in the dining room.
I assume it’s because everyone else has gotten the same text. In fact, the wedding date-embossed bonbonniere chocolates have arrived… and they have the wrong date on them.
I brace myself, memories of my year witnessing reactions to flower arrangements arriving in the wrong colours, DJs deleting song lists, and bridesmaids dresses ripping dancing through my head.
Everyone starts laughing hysterically.
New bonbonnieres are ordered.
All the men leave the house.
I change into some comfy shorts and a t-shirt, but when I emerge, all the ladies are in full makeup, and wearing dresses and heels.
“Are we… going somewhere?” I ask, sheepishly.
No, they say, they just wanted to get dressed up. For each other. Which I can totally get behind, except these days I barely own enough non-jean-shorts to get dressed up for myself. I dig through my luggage and find the nicest thing I have, which feels scruffy next to the Harper’s Bazaar cover in the living room.
The bride’s bestie asks if she can do my makeup. We gather in the poet’s mom’s bedroom amidst the garment bags. The pink eyeliner comes out. Zehra and her friend pore over my face and my hair, while I imagine their internal monologue about my crow’s feet and silver roots.
“I love your ring,” I tell the best friend.
She slips it off of her finger and onto mine, and insists I keep it.
We eat piles of sweets. They put a veil over the bride’s head and bellydance around her in circles. They talk nose jobs, job-jobs, details about tomorrow. I understand maybe 5% of what’s being said, but there isn’t even a hint of judgement about my place here, my outfit choice, or my lifestyle.
We take a million photos. Because I’m wearing lipstick, you can see how big my smile is.
The next day, we wake up to thunderstorms and pouring rain.
I’ve given up asking what time the wedding starts, because every time I have, the poet says he doesn’t know. Today, I learn that actually, no one knows.
At the friends-of-the-family apartment, we laze over a full Turkish breakfast. We drink coffee, tell stories, do our nails on the living room carpet. At one point, the poet’s honorary sister exclaims, “Oh shit! The cake!” She lights a cigarette, calls the baker while her daughter and I get on their instagram feed, and orders one to be ready that afternoon.
I try to explain that where I come from, the wedding cake is normally not just chosen a year before the wedding, but pre-taste-tasted from a vast selection of other cakes.
They laugh, probably thinking, “You guys have way too much time in your hands.”
At noon, we ladies leave for the kuafor. I follow them up a sketchy set of stairs in an old building in the city centre, to find a cosy, wood-walled, hip type place, aside from The Gypsy King blasting from the stereo, and a wall full of styling products insultingly named “Young Blood”.
A man who seems to be in charge approaches me and my 19-year old new fashion icon friend.
“He wants to know when you last washed your hair,” she translates.
“Two days ago,” I say, proudly, because I know day-two hair is the best hair for styling.
They exchange some more words.
“He says you need wash it again.”
Grumbling, I follow another stylist to the sink. She washes my hair without conditioner and drags a brush through it, which is akin to trying to untangle steel wool. Man-in-charge-stylist starts on me with a blowdryer and a curling iron, which he hands to an assistant whose sole purpose is… to hold the curling iron. The Gypsy Kings, who have been taking a break, burst back in with renewed vigour.
There has still not been any product used in my hair. It is pouring rain outside. If you don’t understand how mindblowing this is, you’re going to have to trust me.
He blowdries and curls with the same level of gentleness a toddler would use on a Barbie, and finally whips out a can of hairspray, which at this point is as useful as pouring a shot of vodka onto a raging fire.
I smile like a good white lady and say that I love it. Which, actually, I do.
Especially because it’s going last 10 minutes.
We return home to get dressed. I’m told the bride and her girlfriends are having a photo session at the hotel, and that I’m welcome to join.
“But… should I?” I ask.
“It’s up to you.”
Does that mean no one wants to tell me that I shouldn’t be there?
Does it mean “we don’t really know where to put you”?
And why am I so obsessed with all of this? Hair. Dress. Nail polish colour that I changed this morning so it would be more contrasty with the dress. No one is going to be looking at me, and even if they do, and I manage to achieve a level of not-trying-too-hard-perfection that doesn’t exist, it’s not going to be enough to make me feel worthy, or 33 again, or comfortable in my own skin.
I lie in bed, watching the waterfall outside my window. In 12-step recovery, there’s an saying about “handing it over”. As in, “This is not in my control. It will be as it’s meant to be.”
The poet calls from the wedding venue. They’ve cancelled the photo session, he says. Just get in the car, come here, and let’s have a great time.
The rain is sputtering when we arrive. The sky is deep grey. It’s still muddy, which means I have to carry Django so he won’t track dirt on anyone’s outfit. I have my clutch in my other hand and a giant roll of paper towel for Django’s paws, and stand awkwardly in a corner holding these items until the honorary sister, her husband, and her daughter wave me over to come sit with them.
The bride and groom arrive, glittering like movie stars. An officiant says something, and she says yes and he says yes. There are no readings or long-winded monologues. They sign a piece of paper, and kiss. Everyone cheers.
The wind picks up, and it starts to rain again. We move inside.
When I’d been told it would be an outdoor wedding, I naively imagined a rolling lawn, perhaps a 3-piece band, people floating around in florals. Now, a DJ and dance floor are set up. And then… my god, can these Turks dance. People have changed into whole new outfits for the dance portion of the evening, which no one told me was going to happen.
The music is deafening. The bar is heaving. People take turns holding Django so I can dance, but it’s too loud for him. By 1am we’re in the stairway by the toilets, where his favourite of the poet’s cousins is holding and soothing him. Other cousins join us with drinks and cigarettes, and there we stay until the night ends.
The next day, we hear that parts of the highways to Istanbul and Ankara have washed away in the floods.
The rain buckets down. People gossip and share photos. A crowd returns to the poet’s parents’ house. No one else appears to be as tired as I am, and, more amazingly, they seem to just love being in each other’s company—even the teenagers. There’s backgammon,, tea, more sweets, back slaps, hugs. Arms around shoulders, roaring laughter.
The poet’s parents tell me repeatedly that am to treat their home like my own. Finally, I curl up on the couch with Django as my teddy bear, and sleep for two hours. The laughter rises and fall, the sea crashes and soars, the rain rains, and the celebrations continue into the night.
Love this! Thank you so much for sharing.
Thanks for taking me to the wedding! It made me laugh out loud and feel the tenderness and craziness of this ritual.
And that red dress you're wearing is stunning...poor Django...who are these loud humans???:))
Love all of you and this!