Wedding Fun

Editor's Note: This is the second time I tried to upload these photos. Not all made it, they ended up in a really funny format, and I did my best with subtitles, but it frankly was one of the most frustrating internet experiences here. I apologize for not having the best

Weddings are one of the biggest cultural experiences here in Azerbaijan. Weddings in their own right are big cultural experiences across the world, but Azerbaijani's love their weddings. LOVE them. During wedding season (early summer, fall), there is a wedding you could attend almost every day from some relative or another. Part of the reason is because there are two weddings in AZ. The "girl toy" (toy=Azerbaijan word for wedding) and "boy toy" can have up to 500 people each. The girl toy has the bride's family and friend's, and close friend's and family of the groom. The boy toy is the opposite, but then after the boy toy, which is typically three weeks to a month after the girl's, the bride comes to live with the groom (or the groom's family if they don't have their own house).
I, amazingly, was just able to participate in the ins and outs of this huge cultural experience this month.My host brother just got married this past weekend. We had a HUGE wedding in our yard. Five hundred people, 700 kilos of meat, ten kilos of mayonnaise based salad, 160 bottles of vodka, 200 bottles of beer, 140 cartons of juice, 300 loaves of bread, among various other food and drink made up nine and half hours of village wedding craziness. There was dancing the whole time, speeches (one from yours truly), shoooting off guns, cake cutting, and bubbles. It took two weeks of prep, a new finished kitchen, a week of 15 adults and six children living in the house, and over 40 neighbors helping every day.

Here are pictures of some of the prep work happening before the wedding:

There were three different houses holding mutliple, multiple bins of meat.







There were lots of food preperations, tons of bowls and plates everywhere, food being cooked out back, and a new finished kitchen.
















Cutting of the cake!

Signing of the marriage certificates

A sheep was sacrificed right in front of them for the wedding. Only in the village!

The decorated car picking up the bride from her house to bring her to the wedding. Here was more dancing, a ceremony performed by the groom's brother, taking of the bride's clothes to move to her new house, and lots of music.