Extreme weddings
Post categories: BBC News website, BBC World News, World Service
| 08:50 UK time, Thursday, 14 April 2011
You've got to hand it to the Tajiks - they certainly aren't worried about "nanny state" criticism:
"People were getting into debt to afford weddings, now the new law allows only 150 guests to be fed at wedding parties. The celebration cannot last for more than three hours and only one dish is allowed to be served."
That's what Tajik wedding inspector Mahmadrasul told the BBC's Rayhan Demytrie when she travelled to the village of Davlat-Abad, to film a wedding for the BBC's Extreme Weddings day.
And he should know - he stays at the ceremony to make sure there are no transgressions.
There couldn't be a greater contrast with the wedding of Nadini, a well-known singer, and Madura, her businessman sweetheart, attended by the BBC's Charles Haviland in Sri Lanka last weekend. There, hundreds of guests celebrated in a ceremony that cost tens of thousands of dollars.
You can see reports from both these weddings 14 and 15 April, as part of our Extreme World series, where BBC correspondents around the world compare the extremes of any given topic. We've covered hot and cold climates, the rights of women and the best and worst places to die.
And with Britain's royal wedding on the horizon, we wanted to engage our audiences worldwide in a debate about what weddings and the marriage ceremony itself mean to them. So we'll be bringing Rayhan and Charles together to report live on what they've seen.
Although there are great contrasts in the way people celebrate their weddings around the world - whether modest or lavish - we noticed that everywhere you go, people are investing as much as they can possibly afford, and then some more, in their marriage celebration.
It all ties in with the domestic debate in the UK about the scale of the royal wedding - how do the Royal Family negotiate the tricky problem of organising a wedding fit for a prince, in increasingly austere times?
We hope our audiences around the world have some suggestions. And we're asking them and you to contribute pictures and descriptions of the most extraordinary wedding you've ever attended, which we'll be showing on the BBC's royal wedding site.
Just make sure no-one shows Tajikistan's wedding enforcement team - they might not be happy.
Extreme Weddings is on throughout 14 and 15 April on the World Service, BBC World News and the BBC News website.
Jamie Angus is acting head of news, BBC World News.
© 2011
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Bad luck Kit Green.
The term "extreme wedding" confuses me. I can understand extremes of temperature, because it is an easily measured quantity. But what is an "extreme wedding"? The photographs on the BBC website are not particularly unusual. I've seen TV coverage of people exchanging marriage vows underwater and on the end of bungee cords.
Do you mean extremes of wealth?
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Removing a comment as off topic that merely links to the new BBC Controller's body of work involving a show about avoiding marriage, on a thread about dire TV around weddings, rather shows how low things have sunk on the free speech front around here, as much as content.
Not that anything which counts as a plot would make it in Aunty's brave new world, but it it did you'd soon lose it.
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If you lived in the U.S. you would attend or read about extreme weddings all the time. 150 guests is medium sized. Thousands of dollars are spent on the dress, and that is just the beginning. However, one very rich bride engaged a famous Parisian designer to make her dress. The result was an absolute work of art, and it is a pleasure to know that there are some people who can commission a dress that will no doubt appear in a museum,where it definitely belongs.
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I read that Kate Middleton is a commoner.
The website: www.wargs.com/other/middleton.html lists her 14th G-Gpts
as Thomas Fairfax and Agnes Gascoigne. These lines go back to Henry Percy,
3rd Earl of Northumberland and Rollo, Plantagenets, etc.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
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I notice that BBC World devoted half its newscast Sunday morning to covering the royal wedding in royal wedding report. You call yourself a news organization? Why are you wasting our time with trivial things like this when there is so much real news going on in the world. You are just pandering.
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Well said DanB.
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So. How long before a comment is shown?
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Ahh--i get it now! I am new to this site so it will presumably take a while to get to know my way around. I think i will just watch for a while to see the lay of the land as it were. (Or more accurately--to see what how much i can get away with and how much i CANNOT get away with!) At the moment its cool--with several posts catching my eye that are a bit near the mark as it were! Awfully strict it seems on here--is it?? I hope not!
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Pardon my suggestion, but please remove the Monarchy, they are passe and obsolete. If they need to wed, do a simple one. Why waste money on a lavish ceremony when there is a big chance that they may divorce in the future.
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What difference eh... different worlds, especially when you look at the costs involved for next weekend... ouch!... http://www.friday-ad.co.uk/article/the-royal-wedding-a-royal-price-tag
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I think the Royal Wedding itself is a great feature for Extreme World - you needn't look too far away from home this time - all the pomp and ceremony in Britain around these events is second to none. The wedding media coverage in the mainstream world press and many popular international blogs as far away as South Africa has been quite spectacular - tv programming around weddings and wedding movies for the entire week before the 29th in quite a few countries!
Given the state of the world at the moment with nuclear disasters, tsunamis and revolutions, I think this royal wedding cartoon really hits the nail on the head. Much ado about nothing but the world sure could use some happy news for now.
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