Kurdish Wedding in Stockholm

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  Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
Saturday, November 22, 2008

The room mate and I went to Stockholm for the weekend, we stayed at her parents apartment for the family wedding that was occurring. Parri's very close cousin was getting married and so the opportunity came about for me to experience my first Iranian traditional wedding. Parri's parents both don't speak English so it was quite fun trying to communicate with them in other ways. I gave them a thank you card for letting me stay there for a few days and it was in Swedish, they loved it. After meeting Parri's mother, I can see where she got her loving and generous heart. Parri's brother, Azad, speaks English fluently so we had fun talking about where I come from and how far away it is. The Family wanted to prepare me for what a Kurdish wedding is all about so they put on some videos of their celebrations. They have two traditional dances they do to celebrate a wedding and I learned and participated in both of them. I learned and participated in a lot of stuff while I was there. Parri taught me some Kurdish words before we left on the train. Most important of course was how to say thank you. For the wedding ceremony I came in with the family behind the groom and bride after was gave them an escort in the car to the wedding. I met two of Parri's girl cousins the day before the wedding and we had so much fun getting ready together and trying on our dresses for the wedding. The weddings from their culture are much more formal of an event and everyone dresses up for the occasion. This included the girls all getting their hair done at a salon along with that their makeup. We put on our dresses and went straight from the hair salon to the wedding. When we first arrived with the groom and bride, there was family already at the location of the wedding, and they began chanting and cheering as we came out behind the happy couple. It was such a different experience to be with such a different group of people than the Swedish culture. Everyone knew everyone at this party, they all knew how they were related and everyone greeted me with a huge smile and usually a hug as we exchanged "Salom"s (Hello in Kurdish). One of Parri's cousins was willing to share her Kurdish attire with me for the wedding. So after we ate dinner I changed into the traditional dress of the Kurdish people. Lucky me it was green, my favorite color! The actual wedding celebration began at 4 in the evening and finished around midnight. What did we do?! We danced, we hugged and we smiled. It was so special for Parri's cousins to invite me to share that special day with them, and teach me about their culture and family.