Toy Pictures

There was a request, or demand, for more wedding dancing photos, and I am more than happy to oblige. Unfortunately, I was dancing most of the time and was also the only one with a camera, so you won’t get to see my killer dance moves. However, there are some other good ones.

In case I haven’t mentioned it before, a wedding here is called a “toy.” Which in my mind, makes them that much greater. Who doesn’t like toys? I like toys. With that out of the way, I’ll give a short explanation of the pictures and then just let you enjoy the pictures. At this particular wedding, like most, we were invited by one person that we know. In this case, my friend and Azeri tutor Aygun invited us. We knew some other people there, but for the most part, we were on our own. After enjoying the fine food that was there we were invited to dance, and there’s no way we could say no. The first picture is Ashley, me and Tim taking a short breather.

At this particular wedding, it was mostly women dancing the entire time. Men would occasionally gather to dance, especially after giving a toast, but at this particular wedding it was mostly women and children. The next picture is a grandmother who really wanted to dance with the Americans. She got up and danced like hell, which led to us taking a breather. She was good.

Next is Tim in a sort of dance-off. This woman was all over the place throughout the entire wedding and was non-stop dancing. Tim, getting into the groove and shoved into the center of the circle that had formed, had no choice but to engage in a dance that increasingly picked up pace. You can see Ashley laughing in the background. I would have gotten into the center of the circle and danced, but who would have taken the pictures?

The next picture doesn’t involve any dancing, unfortunately, but it does involve an entire lamb. At some point in the middle of the wedding, a group of waiters came out to and wheeled this giant cart to the head table. We couldn’t see from where we were what was on it, but when they put it on the head table, we could see it was a whole lamb. I was told later that this was very expensive.

Finally, we have Tim and Ashley dancing with a group. Everyone is feeling pretty good about themselves and their dance moves and are just enjoying the music at this point. Hopefully I will be going to many more weddings this summer and will be able to get a fine collection of photos for all of you back home. Typically, each wedding starts around 7, with a couple hours of eating, then dancing. The brides’ sister kept asking us what music we wanted (typically, we request our favorite Turkish pop star) and then insisting that we dance. We ate as much as we could and then danced. That’s usually how it goes. Till next time, you know what to do.