My Big Fat Uyghur Wedding: Ceremony

Home » Uyghur Wedding, uyghurs June 2, 2010 12 Comments

The morning following the Uyghur bachelor party was an early one.  Merely hours after all us guys had returned from partying it was time to awaken for the wedding ceremony, an event that would stretch from 6am in the morning to late that night.  Were it not for my excitement over being part of this celebration, I probably would have been slow to get out of bed that morning.

A rural Uyghur wedding in 1984 Xinjiang

A Uyghur wedding in rural Xinjiang

Uyghur weddings, as with every culture, can take on many different forms.  There are traditional weddings, modern weddings, short weddings and lengthy ones.  Some brides wear white, some drift to other colors.  There are rural weddings and city weddings, each unique in their own right.

The differences between these diverse celebrations can be confusing; however there is one part of the process that has remained practically unchanged for centuries in the Uyghur culture: the ceremony.

Early Morning at the Bride’s Home

I couldn’t believe that anybody would want to get married at this hour.  It was 6am Xinjiang time (which translatesA tiny shred of light peeks over the Xinjiang horizon to 8am Beijing time) and a line was forming outside the bride’s home.  As sunlight barely began to peek out over the horizon I was relieved to discover that I wasn’t the only one experiencing sleep withdrawals.

All of the visitors filed into the 6-storey apartment building that was home to mostly Uyghur people.  The neighbors weren’t bothered by the loud raucous being made in the stairwell because they, too, would be attending this wedding.  I have found that the Uyghur community tends to work like that.

Fortunately for me I had met Ahmajan’s wife-to-be on previous occasions.  She was a sweet woman with long, thick hair and beautiful eyes, but right now they weren’t visible.  She was wearing a white veil and I learned later that she would continue to wear this veil in public until late that night during the wedding reception.

The small apartment was quickly overcrowded with Uyghur, primarily family and very close friends who greeted each other with hearty handshakes or hugs.  Hundreds of people were preparing to arrive for the celebration that night but only a select few made it to this part of the wedding.  They call it a “nikka” and it didn’t officially begin until the imam arrived.

A Uyghur Nikka in Xinjiang

Once the imam, a leader at the local mosque, sat down and indicated that he was ready, conversation and noise in the room quickly died.  In the eyes of the Chinese government these two were married the moment they received their red books a couple weeks ago (equivalent to a marriage certificate), but for everybody present in the room that morning the moment was now.

The veiled bride stood separated from her groom, both attended to by their closest friends.  All seats and couches in the living room were taken and many more were standing behind them.  Despite the early hour everybody was dressed in their best clothes and all eyes were on the imam.

His prayer, which could be described more like a low chant, almost put me to sleep.  The melodic hum of his voice gently bounced off the walls of the concrete home and immediately granted importance to this ceremony.  I didn’t catch a word of what he said but I think it is safe to assume he was asking a blessing on this marriage.

When he completed his prayer everybody present wiped their face with their hands, a traditional Islamic form of closing prayer.  The imam followed his prayer with more talking which, again, I could not understand.

Uyghur Wedding Unlike the West

It was while watching this that my mind had time to register how bizarrely different this wedding was from any other I had attended.  After you live amidst a foreign culture for a certain number of years you become numb to things that are “different” because most everything you experience is new.  Once I forced myself to really look at what was happening, however, I noticed quite a few things were not what I expected.

First of all, throughout this entire wedding process nobody ever stepped foot inside a mosque.  The couple was Muslim and the ceremony was religious, for sure, but no religious building was used.  The entire ceremony was performed at the bride’s family home.

Also, it took me a moment to realize that the bride wasn’t wearing a wedding gown.  Her dress was formal and her face was covered, but it was not her wedding dress.  It makes sense now that I think about it.  Brides all over the world spend hours preparing to wear their wedding dresses and to do so here would mean waking up at 1am in the morning.

Finally, when thinking about the ceremony I was struck by two events I noticed missing: 1) the exchange of rings and 2) a kiss.  These two symbolic gestures made no appearance that morning and only one of them made it into the celebration that night.  According to one friend the exchange of rings is a practice that only recently has become popular with Uyghur newlyweds.

Not once during the entire wedding did I see my Uyghur friend kiss his bride.

Post-Ceremony Celebration / Pre-Reception Preparation

Uyghur women, including the bride on the far right

The bride is the woman on the far right (before the wedding and without a veil)

After exchanging a Uyghur form of “I do”, another prayer was offered and the ceremony ended. At this point the women of the household quickly snatched away the bride to the back of the home where presumably they began to work on her hair and makeup for that evening.

Meanwhile the men took turns congratulating Ahmajan, extending their personal blessings before exiting the home.  The calm atmosphere commanded by the presence of the imam had disappeared the moment he had finished the ceremony and as far as I could tell it was never again found for the rest of the day.

Controlled chaos reigned in the household until lunch time when the men left for a restaurant meal.  Again, only family and close friends were present at this meal, yet somehow it lasted between 3-5 hours.  Meanwhile, in a Uyghur banquet hall only a couple kilometers away, cooks and servers were preparing to receive hundreds of hungry guests for the pinnacle of the wedding celebration: the reception.

But before this could take place there was one thing left to do.  What happens next in a Uyghur wedding can only be described as one of the most fun, unique and hilarious customs I’ve ever witnessed.

And I have a video to prove it!

Check out the rest of this 4-part series on Uyghur Weddings:

  1. The Bachelor Party
  2. The Ceremony
  3. The Parade
  4. The Celebration (Reception)

12 Comments

(Enter your own comment)
  • rudi said:
    June 2nd, 2010 at 1:13 pm

    Great post. I had the opportunity to attend a Uyghur wedding reception about 10 years ago. Nice to find out what was probably happening before that event.

    Interestingly, in the Northeast of China they also go in for very early weddings. The ceremony and banquet — with dinner-type food and booze — usually start before 9am, which means the groom has to be at the brides house with his posse by 7 at the latest. (He has to spend a lot of time proving himself to the bride’s friends).

    For some reason, afternoon weddings are reserved for people who are getting married a second time.

    Weddings are a great window into other cultures. I’m looking forward to reading more of this series.

    [Reply]

    Josh says: June 2nd, 2010 at 11:41 pm

    I’ll be posting about the reception on Friday. I’d be interested to hear from you what the differences are between the one you attended 10 years ago and the one I attended last year. Please drop by and leave a comment on that article!

    [Reply]

  • Iain said:
    June 2nd, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    The ceremony sounds quite intimate. Was it? And were any of the witnesses Han Chinese?

    I’ve been to a Hui wedding in Shanghai. Or the reception of a Hui wedding – I’m not sure if there was a ceremony. There was no pork but lots of drinking. I don’t think the groom drank, but he was given a plastic coke bottle with 20 or so cigarettes stuck into its sides, and had to inhale from the bottle’s opening.

    [Reply]

    Josh says: June 2nd, 2010 at 11:42 pm

    Good question. There were no Han witnesses at this particular ceremony, although there were quite a few at the reception. I think the fact that it’s a Muslim ceremony keeps most Han from even being interested in coming.

    As for that cigarette bottle…wow. Never seen that one before!

    [Reply]

    Baoru says: June 4th, 2010 at 8:33 am

    Sorry, I have a stupid question–

    There are Muslim-Hans, right?

    [Reply]

    Josh says: June 4th, 2010 at 10:49 am

    In a way, yes. They are called “Hui” and I think they prefer the name “Chinese Muslims” instead of “Han Muslim” primarily because they are technically their own ethnic group.

    Don’t worry, not a stupid question! I don’t expect everybody (including myself!) to be able to name off all the ethnic groups represented in Xinjiang.

  • Baoru said:
    June 2nd, 2010 at 3:42 pm

    Is there a special reason why it needs to be that early?

    [Reply]

    Josh says: June 2nd, 2010 at 11:44 pm

    I’m not sure. It seems to me that it’s just part of the tradition. Kind of like waking up in the morning to open Christmas presents…does it really have to start at 6am in the morning? :)

    [Reply]

    Baoru says: June 4th, 2010 at 8:31 am

    Good point. But there are those who open their gifts at midnight. :-)

    I like that–getting married at an early time. Kind of symbolic.

    [Reply]

  • Rus said:
    June 3rd, 2010 at 1:49 pm

    Very interesting post, thank you very much. It should be mentioned that some details in Uyghur wedding traditions vary between localities. For example, here in Kazakhstan, where most of the Uyghurs are originally migrants from the Ili Valley, there are no 6am Nikah requirements (or at least I’ve never seen or heard of a 6am Nikah). In my case, Nikah was at around 10 am. In all of the cases I’ve witnessed here Nikah was conducted before noon, but not too early.

    But I should say that I’ve been once to a 6am wedding polo ceremony at an Uzbek wedding in Tashkent. It was tough for me to understand why I should wake up at 5am to go to a restaraunt to eat polo at 6am, especially after going to bed at 3 am the same night after a bachelor party :)

    There’s another interesting detail about the Nikah here. The local Uyghur procedure of “I do” in my vicinity consists of the imam first asking the bride’s father whether he lets his daughter to marry the groom and then asking the groom whether he agrees to take the bride as his wife. The bride herself is not even asked to confirm her agreement to marry. I personally see two possible explanations for this detail: 1) a remnant of old Muslim traditions, 2) a need to confirm the status of a father in an Uyghur patriarchic society. And that’s just my vicinity. I’ve been to Nikahs in other vicinities where the bride was asked instead of her father.

    And the difference about the veil. My wife for example was wearing a transparent veil during Nikah. The veil was raised after Nikah by my mother, which sort of marks an acceptance of the bride into the new family. And after Nikah the veil was taken off, it didn’t have to be worn until end of the day.

    There are many differing details like these. They can be talked about for long.

    [Reply]

    Josh says: June 4th, 2010 at 2:56 am

    Polo at 6am? I love the food, but that would be terrible! There was plenty of food out during the ceremony but I don’t think much of it was actually eaten. In other words, people didn’t sit down with a plate to eat.

    Thanks for providing that detail about the “I do” procedure. I wish I had the language ability to be able to comment more on what was said during the ceremony, but alas my poor Uyghur will permit me only what I saw.

    Finally, the veil is somewhat the same. At this wedding the groom’s mother also raised the veil, but she did so during the reception that night with everybody watching (which I’ll describe in the final article today). It was pretty cool to have everybody watching and clapping as that was done.

    Thanks so much for sharing your details. I’ve only been to a couple Uyghur weddings and I freely admit there is much I will probably miss in writing this series. Your comments are welcome and I hope you can shed more light on the reception article today.

    [Reply]

    Rus says: June 4th, 2010 at 11:26 am

    I think polo at 6 am can be partially explained by the hot weather in Tashkent during the day.

    And another detail about the Nikah. In my case before the prayer was the sort of parental guidance lecture read by the imam, things like respect each other, respect each other’s parents, etc. And during this lecture imam says one interesting thing about a symbolic amount of money owed by the groom to the bride, sort of an ongoing obligation of the future husband to buy things for his wife. In my case it was 20,000 tenge, which at that time was equivalent to $180. The number can differ, the currency too can differ, but the meaning I’m sure is more or less the same in all of the cases.

    [Reply]

Leave your response!