Arusi Persian Wedding

PBS has a feature called "independent lens" that will be airing a documentary called Arusi Persian Wedding. Arusi is "wedding" in Irani language Farsi (Aroos / Arous is bride and Damad is groom).

Arusi Persian Wedding
Click link above to see a trailer for the film and check local listings.

In Cambridge/Boston, WGBX Channel 44 will be airing the film twice...
Thursday, March 19, @ 3:00am and Sunday, March 29 @ 9:00pm

For those of us living north of Boston, the NH public television station (my favorite!) WENH Channel 11 is airing the film on Saturday, March 28 @ 12:00am and Sunday, March 29 @ 11:00pm

Ali and I and our friend Kristen went to the Boston Public Library to see a screening of Arusi Persian Wedding, and we thought it was pretty interesting. It's definitely one of those earnest "we're just keeping it real!" pieces from a young filmmaker.

What I liked about the piece, and the reason I will watch it again when it airs on independent lens, is that it is a candid look behind the scenes, on location in Iran, on a topic (the wedding) that is assumed to integrated in every person's vernacular if you grow up in Iran, but the oral tradition gets orphaned and out of context, and can even seem irrelevant to a second generation kid raised in the mainstream US. Complicating matters further, traditionally the parents plan, coordinate, and fund the entire Arusi (the groom's side picks up the tab) while in the US weddings are now mostly planned and often paid for by the couple. There is a huge gap in expectation when a young Irani-American sets a date for their wedding. It's suddenly every third cousin's business.

After going through the craziness of a Persian-style Arusi wedding celebration for our own wedding last February, I can tell you that it is NOT easy to get connected to information about Persian weddings if you don't understand Farsi... younger generations who speak both languages don't really want to talk about it and the older generations who love to talk about it can't express the traditions in English. The classic fusion wedding dilemma! It's intriguing from a psychological standpoint.

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March is a very special month in Irani culture, so it's a great time to air a doc about Persian weddings. The most celebrated Irani holiday is always around March 21, at the vernal equinox. Persians take the exact lunar calendar date down to the hour and celebrate the beginning of spring with a big party with a table of seven traditional items (Haft Sīn), but only after cleaning their houses from top to bottom (Khoune Takouni) and jumping over a fire (Chahārshanbe Sūrī چهارشنبه سوری) - more on those things later. Nowrūz means new year / new day. Wikipedia has some really decent information about Nourouz.

Someday I will probably attempt to coordinate resources for those of us who plan Persian wedding Arusi. There's a lot of beautiful symbolism and ancient traditions that are difficult to understand in the western context of most American weddings, but these traditions can help inform our understanding of the age-old institution. I hope we don't lose it all in the culture gap!