Albanian (Muslim) Wedding, Old Tappan, NJ, 1990

Afrim and Emira are married during the celebration. The bridegroom's father, wearing a beret, stands to the right while another imam reads excerpts from the Koran. No rings. No vows. The text is in Arabic which almost no one present understands.

Katrina Thomas's notes: The only Albanian Muslim wedding I photographed was in New Jersey. It was more relaxed than the two Catholic weddings celebrated within the Bronx community, possibly because these families have moved to suburbia. The bridegroom is the son of an imam. Without him, in a caravan of cars the groom's family drives to the bride's house to bring her in a limousine to her conjugal home. Upon arrival, Emira sits in the limo while a young nephew is put in her lap for luck in producing sons. The bridegroom Afrim greets her in a restrained manner. Her mother-in-law, standing at the door of the house, holds a small bowl of sugared water into which Emira dips the fingers of her right hand and touches both sides of the doorframe. Then stepping into the house, right foot first, she is introduced to the kitchen, after which her new sisters-in-law celebrate her arrival by dancing, while she stands without moving, apparently oblivious. Later, at the reception, her family is present but they sit at tables apart and do not communicate with her. The sole Islamic touches that I noted were an imam reading brief excerpts from the Koran, and the lack of liquor.