Know About Muslim Wedding Culture

If you are attending the wedding of Muslim friends or are new to the Muslim religion, it's important to know about the wedding culture so that you can extend the proper etiquette and adhere to the rules of the Muslim society.

Muslim wedding can come into many types, one type of marriage may involve a gathering of family and friends, while some individuals may choose to have a wedding with one or two witnesses. A ceremony is not a must for a Muslim marriage to be valid.

If a Muslim bride and groom decide to have a wedding, it is usually held at the bride's home. The groom and his groomsmen are expected to arrive at the bride's home well before the ceremony. Small gifts may be offered to the groom by the bride's family, but the groom is also expected to give cash gifts to the bride's cousins or sisters.

Then it comes to the leading role of Muslim weddings, wedding dresses.

A Muslim wedding dress is often a dressier version of the accepted dress for women in that particular country. In many countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, women wear an abaya in daily life, as well as to their wedding. While a daily abaya is usually a plain black garment, a wedding abaya is often in a lighter color, with more details. A wedding abaya can be white, pink, blue or something different, according to regional tastes and customs. Some wedding versions have a contrasting lace color over the abaya, or embroidery on the top layer.

In some regions, a wedding dress that is closer to the Western wedding dress style is allowed. These dresses are white silk or satin and feature a high neck and long sleeves. These dresses use a head wrap or headpiece that is separate from the dress to fulfill the Islamic need to cover the hair. The wedding veil is attached to the head covering, creating a Western-style sheer veil in the back.

In India and Palestine, bright-red wedding dresses are popular among Muslim brides. These generally take the shape of the local customary dress. A Muslim bride in India would wear a dress made like a sari, with a veil matching the dress worn over the head. These usually feature a bright-red background with a contrasting color embroidered over it in small, intricate patterns. In Palestine, Muslim wedding dresses are belted at the waist and feature a dark-red background, with a pattern over it in a contrasting color.

To keep a wedding dress looking modest, most Muslim wedding dresses feature high necklines, sometimes extending up above the collar an inch or two. While Muslim wedding dresses in India may leave the arms visible, in most Islamic countries the custom is to wear long sleeves and sometimes a long veil that extends from the neck over the hands to cover them. In very religiously conservative families, brides often wear gloves that coordinate with their wedding dress color.