For Oil-Rich Brides, Caviar, Crystal, And 1,000 Guests
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- When Noor Al-Roomi planned her son's recent wedding, she knew she was up against tough competition from many other big weddings. "Everyone wants to hold a more impressive wedding than the family before," says Ms. Al-Roomi.
She managed to hold her own. Arrangements included bringing in Beluga caviar from the Caspian, tablecloths from Switzerland, a cake chef from France and flowers from Holland. Guests received as favors gold-rimmed crystal bowls filled with Belgian chocolates. "You don't want to have anything that is easily found on the local market. It has to be exclusive," she explains. The groom's family spent $250,000 on the six-hour affair.
The Al-Roomi nuptials are part of a wedding industry that is resurgent in the Persian Gulf economic boom fed by higher oil prices.
When oil prices fell in the 1980s and 1990s, fewer families in the region could spring for the extravagant weddings their social set had come to expect. Unable to shoulder the cost of a properly ostentatious wedding, couples put off marrying.
The average number of marriages in the United Arab Emirates dropped by one-quarter between the mid-1980s and the end of the 1990s. In Kuwait, the number fell about 15% in that same period, as it did in Bahrain, according to the Central Statistics Organization.
Given the rapidly growing populations and the increasing number of men and women reaching "marriageable age," which generally means the early 20s, Persian Gulf rulers became concerned that lower marriage rates could eventually translate into slower population growth. Some rulers, who are essentially the heads of large extended families, worried that more of their young men would marry foreigners in order to forgo fancy weddings and save money.
In the UAE, the late president Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan set up a marriage fund, offering grants to male citizens to encourage them to marry local women. "In the '90s, a growing number of UAE women were remaining unmarried," fretted an official UAE report on social development. Established in 1994, the fund offered grants of about $20,000 to help young men meet wedding costs. The sheik himself then footed the bill for group ceremonies in which dozens of young couples would marry. Because the government viewed extravagant weddings as a deterrent to men marrying local women, it announced that families holding such events would be subject to fines of up to $136,000 or even prison sentences. But it is unclear whether any cases have ever been brought, and it appears today that the threat has not curbed lavish weddings.
Times have changed with the price of oil. UAE officials say marriage rates have climbed steadily since 2003. The past two years have seen 20% annual increases in marriages. Meanwhile, mass weddings have tailed off since their peak in 1999.
Wedding planners are now putting on the dog. "I have mothers coming to me requesting a particular crystal glass that they saw at a royal ball in London. Or they want a design for a gift box that no one would have ever seen before. Or they want edible-gold-coated almonds," says wedding planner Dina Al-Rashad, who is based in Kuwait.
For Ms. Al-Rashad this has meant traveling the globe looking for the perfect glass, or fork, or ribbon or party favor.
The wedding celebration for Hissa Khalaf, a 24-year-old bride from a wealthy family, played out over three days recently in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. On the first evening there was a henna party -- a sort of bridal shower. More than 300 girls gathered in a ballroom to dance, dine and have their bodies decorated with temporary henna tattoos expertly placed by a team of Sudanese henna artists flown in from Egypt, according to Hala Al-Abbar, a cousin of the bride. Guests took home finely engraved silver boxes, she says.
The following day, close to 800 guests gathered at a sprawling beach mansion for a party that lasted from noon until well past midnight. The bride changed her outfit just about every hour, and the buffet, which spanned 25 tables, was changed five times, says Ms. Al-Abbar. Guests received gold coins as souvenirs. "They spent as much on that day as most couples spend on a wedding night. More," says Ms. Al-Abbar.
The main event on the following night had about 1,000 guests -- about 1,400 had been invited -- filling the mansion and its grounds.
The groom was carried in on a litter by men in turbans. The bride followed on her own more delicate gold throne, artificial smoke rising from below to give her an ethereal appearance. From above, glitter rained down on her while guests tossed gold coins and turquoise stones, provided on tables as good-luck omens. That night's party favor: a cut-crystal box filled with almonds and containing a large gold coin embossed with the couple's names and a Sura, or verse, from the Quran.
For the wedding party, a European orchestra and a disc jockey from Spain were flown in. Other weddings have featured Egyptian pop stars, at up to $40,000 for brief appearances. For a traditional touch, sprawling Arabian desert affairs are held in tents that rent for as much as about $25,000.
Hoteliers say the ceremonies are their most reliable business, and now bring in at least half of annual catering revenue for resorts such as the Ritz-Carlton, Dubai, according to officials at the hotel.
The London-based Diamond Trading Co. recently set up shop in Dubai, and a chunk of its business comes from weddings. "Arab nationals are passionate about diamonds, and the boom makes this the fourth largest market in the world," says Nicholas Graham-Smith, DTC's regional director. "The UAE is at the forefront of it all."
While the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs says the percentage of local men marrying foreigners has dropped, rulers still have qualms about the lavish affairs. They've asked locals to curb spending. Parents, too, are worrying. In the poorer and more conservative neighboring Emirate of Fujairah, the Parents Council of a local school recently urged the Marriage Fund to continue to support mass weddings and to enforce penalties against those who fritter away their money.
"This spending trend will make young men feel they can't get married to locals, which will mean they'll marry foreigners, which we know leads to divorce. Or they'll marry an Emirati and end up in very large debt," says Maryam Eissa, the mother of four young children. Fujairah's Sheik Abdullah Al-Sharqi has asked the Marriage Fund to take measures to reverse the trend.
奢华婚宴重现波斯湾
Noor Al-Roomi为儿子筹办最近这次婚礼的时候，就知道自己要同几场大型婚礼展开激烈竞争了。“每个人都希望自己的婚礼能给人留下深刻的印象，超过家里以前操办的任何一场，”她说。
她还是设法筹办了一场盛大的婚礼：Beluga鱼子酱从里海运来、桌布来自瑞士、从法国聘请了专做蛋糕的大厨、鲜花来自荷兰。宾客们捧著镶金边的水晶碗，里面盛满了比利时巧克力。“才不会用当地就能买到的东西呢，用具必须独一无二，”她解释说。新郎的家族为这场持续了6个小时的盛宴花费了250,000美元。
Al-Roomi家的这场婚宴只是整个波斯湾方兴未艾的婚礼产业的一小部分。随著油价的节节攀升，波斯湾经济也开始蓬勃发展，婚礼也不例外。
八、九十年代油价下滑之际，波斯湾地区几乎没有哪个家族能筹备得起符合他们社会地位的婚礼。难以负担的豪华婚礼费用迫使很多年轻人推迟结婚。
Central Statistics Organization的数据显示，八十年代中期到九十年代末，阿拉伯联合酋长国的结婚人数减少了四分之一，科威特和巴林各减少了约15%。
随著人口数量的激增，达到适婚年龄的男男女女也越来越多。波斯湾各国各部落的掌权者开始担心，低结婚率会最终演变成低人口增长率。有些掌权的人本来就是一个庞大家族的首领，他们担心自己家族中的年轻男子会越来越多地赢取外国女人，以逃避奢华的婚礼，好节省钱财。
阿联酋总统哈利法?本?扎耶德?阿勒纳哈扬(Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan)设立了一个婚姻基金，鼓励男性公民迎娶本国女性。“90年代，未婚的阿联酋女性日渐增多，”一份调查社会发展形势的官方报告称。这项基金成立于1994年，申请人可以得到大约20,000美元的婚礼赞助。总统还自掏腰包赞助了不少集体婚礼。因为政府认为豪华婚礼是阻止本国男女青年成婚的障碍，就宣布大操大办的家庭会被处以最高136,000美元的罚款，甚至被判入狱。但是，现在还不清楚有没有人因此被起诉，而且就眼下的形势来看，这种威胁并没有阻止豪华婚礼的上演。
油价的变动带来了时代的变迁。阿联酋官员表示，2003年以来该国结婚率稳步攀升，最近这两年的年增幅甚至高达20%。此外，集体婚礼的热潮从1999年以后就逐渐消退了。
科威特的婚礼策划师Dina Al-Rashad说，“不断有新人的妈妈来找我，要我帮忙找到一种他们在伦敦皇家舞会上看到的别致的水晶杯，要一款从没见过的专门设计的礼品盒，要可食用的镀金杏仁……”
对Al-Rashad来说，这就意味著走遍世界，去寻找称心如意的杯子、叉子、彩带，等等。
24岁的新娘Hissa Khalaf出身豪门，她的婚礼在阿拉伯联合酋长国的阿布扎比总共进行了三天。第一天晚上举行的是指甲花派对(henna party)──类似于新娘送礼派对。300多名女孩子在舞池中跳舞、用餐，专业纹身师用指甲花在她们的身体上纹出可擦洗的图案，新娘的堂姐妹Hala Al-Abbar说，这些纹身师是专门从埃及请来的。宾客们都获得了雕刻精美的银制礼盒。
第二天，近800名客人在连排沙滩别墅中从中午狂欢到午夜。Al-Abbar说，新娘的服装几乎每小时换一次，摆满25张桌子的自助餐共撤换了五次。宾客们收到了金币作为纪念。Al-Abbar说，“他们当天的花费相当于大多数新人结婚当晚的花销，甚至更多。”
在接下来的那个夜晚举行的主要活动中，近1,000名客人把别墅内外挤得满满的──他们共邀请了1,400名客人。
新郎戴著包头巾坐轿进来了，新娘紧随其后，乘坐著更精美的金色座椅，人们点起的缕缕青烟从她的背后升腾起来，这样看起来她像是仙女下凡。从上方落下了亮闪闪的喷雪，而来宾则向新娘投掷象征好运的金币和绿宝石。晚会的礼物是：一个水晶盒子，里面装满杏仁，还有一枚写有新人名字和可兰经中诗句的大金币。
欧洲管弦乐队和来自西班牙的DJ在婚礼派对上大显身手。有的婚礼还曾邀请埃及流行明星助阵，他们的出场费最高达4万美元。如果想有个传统婚礼，那么可以租帐篷在广袤的阿拉伯沙漠上举行派对，帐篷的租金高达25,000美元。
饭店的经营者表示，婚礼是他们最可靠的业务来源，对于迪拜等度假胜地来说，婚礼至少可以占到他们餐饮业年收入的一半。
伦敦的Diamond Trading Co.最近在迪拜开设了店铺，业务大部分也来自结婚典礼。公司地区负责人Nicholas Graham-Smith说，“阿拉伯人对钻石情有独锺，这个市场的繁荣使它成为了世界上第四大的钻石市场。阿拉伯联合酋长国又是阿拉伯国家中最爱钻石的。”
虽然劳动和社会事务部(Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs)表示，当地男性与外国女性结婚的情况减少了，但当局仍然对婚礼的奢侈忧心忡忡。他们要求当地人节俭开支。新人的父母也不无担心。在稍显贫穷和保守的近邻富查伊拉，最近当地学校的家长委员会要求结婚基金会(Marriage Fund)继续扶持集体婚礼并对那些浪费钱财的新人予以惩罚。
四个孩子的母亲Maryam Eissa说，“这种消费潮流会让年轻男子不敢娶当地女子，也就是说他们会和外国人结婚，而这意味著离婚。或者他们会负债累累地娶个当地女子。富查伊拉的酋长Abdullah Al-Sharqi已经要求结婚基金会采取措施改变这种潮流。
