Wedding Dresses Galore!

Naile, the very sweet and funny girl I work with, is getting married this weekend. I'm actually excited about the wedding because this is the first bride that I actually know really well and I her wedding wasn't arranged- she actually loves the guy!But he's from Lenkaran, which is a city about as far away from Ganja as you can get- in the South near the Iranian border. After the wedding on Saturday she is moving down there to live with him in a couple of rooms in his parent's house! However, this is pretty normal for the culture. It definitely saves money!

So a couple of weeks ago we went dress shopping around Ganja with Naile's sister Sevinj. The interesting tidbit is that here the bride rents her wedding dress-which makes so much more sense! The rental price is still pretty steep-around 100 bucks for an afternoon/evening. The key is to try and get a dress that hasn't been rented before. If I haven't mentioned it before, the dresses here are amazing- and I mean that in both a good way and a bad way. If you want a gynormous Cinderella-style poofy, blingy gown, this is the place to be! They are really, with few exceptions, incredibly elaborate-the more sparkles the better! They really are eye catching in the store windows- this is also a country I would wager with the most wedding dress shops per capita. This may be due to the fact there are so many weddings. Most couples have at least two big ones- one for the boy's family and the other for the girl's family. Many also have a pretty big party for the engagement. Each one requires a different dress. In the girls wedding the bride can wear any color and usually does not wear white. White is reserved for the boy's wedding which is the final and 'real' wedding (i.e.- the marriage is consummated that night-with a witness to ensure the virginity of the bride!! and a family party given by the boy's family where the wedding sheets are displayed!!!!) Anyway, I digress....Naile decided to wear white for her girl's wedding because most of her relatives will not be able to all the way to Lenkaran to see the boy's wedding. But anyway, after gazing at all of these dresses for so long I was excited at the prospect of actually going into a shop and maybe, just maybe being able to try one on. This is no easy feat because the shop assistants only let girls try on dresses if they are actually having a wedding. But Naile and I weren't above lying! haha!

But as it turns out one of her neighbors worked in a shop and she let both Sevinj and I try dresses on. So I picked a particularly bright one- I liked the color- not necessarily the style. Sadly it didn't really fit. I'm just not built like the tiny Azeri girls here. I think my back is twice the width of most girls here. So needless to say its not a very flattering cut(note to self, arm liposuction and tummy tuck are in order!)Haha! Anyway it was still a fun day and after roaming all around, Naile, the bride, never actually tried one one. Here are some pictures I took until one of the shop ladies yelled at me, maybe the flash will ruin them? Or they are top secret designs that could be copied- like everything already is here???? Anyway, Will have a posting about the wedding up soon!