JEDDAH, 1 October 2005 — The beautiful wedding invitation arrives urging the recipients to attend the special event. After the time, date and location are given appears the sentence “We wish your children a peaceful night.” The kind wish, however, has another meaning, specifically “Leave your kids at home.”
In some families, a wedding just wouldn’t be a wedding without little Aboudi or little princess, but for other families having a bunch of screaming, unsupervised children racing about, raiding the food, acting up and acting like, well, kids are an unwelcome distraction for some couple’s special night. Some wedding halls even are weighing in on the subject with the recommendation that the kids have that “peaceful night” — somewhere else.
When Arab News went out seeking opinions (we left the kids at home) a wide variety of viewpoints on this issue was discovered.
As for brides and grooms, most said other than the children of close relatives, kids should have a “peaceful night.”
“Unless the child is a brother, sister, nephew or niece, they better not show up at my wedding,” said 23-year-old Mariam Khalid.
In the case of the mothers of the betrothed, some commented it would be better if their daughters’ weddings weren’t ruined by hordes of screaming young children.
“I attended a wedding once and there were less than 10 children, but it felt like there were 50,” said Rania Ahmad, a middle-aged wife and mother.
She said that she couldn’t enjoy the evening because of the noisy kids. At her daughter’s wedding, she plans to limit the number of youngsters on the prowl. Ahmad said children kept running all over the place and damaged the hall’s decorations, which cost thousands of riyals.
“It’s better for children to stay at their home,” Ahmad said. “They need to sleep early, after all.”
Some grooms said they’ll have their own children soon enough, and there wasn’t any point in reminding them of what their fate will be soon enough anyway.
“Once the ceremony began, and we entered the hall, the lights were shut off except for one spotlight focusing on us,” said newly-wed Hamza Rashid. “One child got frightened and started crying and didn’t stop until all the lights were on again.”
So much for dramatic lighting. Rashid also got another unexpected memory of his special moment. “He also insisted on walking with us through the ceremony,” Rashid said.
Wedding guests surveyed by Arab News had a completely different perspective on the youth issue and were able to enumerate several reasons supporting youngsters attending weddings.
“The first reason is that who will take care of these children when almost all our weddings are taking place at night,” said Abu Faisal, a father of three.
“How can these grooms and brides be happy if they don’t share that day of their lives with all their relatives, friends and innocent children who will make the wedding vivid and enjoyable?”
Staff members of most of the Jeddah wedding halls Arab News contacted said they usually ask the hosts not to invite children. If a child was a close relative to the hosts, they are allowed to come, one representative said, but they will stay in the dressing room along with the bride and groom. He said that it’s hard for a kid to sit still for more than an hour, and once kids start moving they disturb the waitresses who are trying to serve juice or food every few minutes.
Of course, many of these problems could be addressed through the radical concept of parental supervision, but for the time being, the questions remain whether little Aboudi and Princess will be welcomed at Saudi weddings or get the couples’ best wishes for a “peaceful night” — somewhere else.
