The wedding of Jordan’s 28-year-old heir to the throne to architect Rajwa Alseif, 29, underscored the continuity of the Arab country known for its long-term stability.
Posted on – Thu 01 Jun 23 at 02:45pm
Amman: Jordan’s much-anticipated royal wedding kicked off on Thursday, with Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate making a surprise announcement that they had arrived to witness the wedding of Crown Prince Hussein and his Saudi Arabian bride.
The attendance of the British royals has been kept under wraps, with Jordanian state media confirming only hours before the ceremony at the palace.
The wedding of Jordan’s 28-year-old heir to the throne to architect Rajwa Alseif, 29, underscored the continuity of the Arab country known for its long-term stability.
The festivities, which will begin on Thursday afternoon, will also introduce Hussain to a wider global audience.
The celebration cemented the royal line of succession, refreshed its image following palace feuds and may even help resource-poor Jordan forge strategic ties with its oil-rich neighbor Saudi Arabia.
Saudi wedding guests and visitors — men in white dishcloth robes and women in brightly colored robes — passed through the sleek marble lobby of the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman on Thursday morning.
The bride’s aunt, Noura Al Sudairi, wore sweatpants and sneakers on her way to breakfast.
“We’re all excited and happy about this alliance,” she said. “Of course it’s a beautiful thing for our family and for the relationship between Jordan and Saudi Arabia.” The wedding – Jordan’s biggest royal event in years – caused a stir in the capital Amman, Hussein Congratulatory banners with his beaming bride hang from the bus and hang from the winding hillside streets.
Shops scramble to be the first to display royal finery. Royal watchers speculated which costume designer Al Seef would choose – which remains an official secret, said Nancy Tirana, a 28-year-old legal trainee who had been scrutinizing Al Seef last week. Every move and seam of clothes.
“She’s so beautiful, so graceful and it’s clear from her body language how much she loves the Queen,” she said, referring to Hussain’s charming mother Rania.
“I feel like the whole of Jordan is getting married,” Tirana gushed over a meal of mansaf, Jordan’s national dish, before heading to a wedding-themed concert.
Jordan’s 11 million citizens have witnessed the young crown prince’s rise in recent years as he has increasingly appeared in public alongside his father, King Abdullah II.
Hussain graduated from Georgetown University, enlisted in the military and garnered some global recognition by speaking at the United Nations General Assembly. Experts say his wedding marks his next big coming-of-age ceremony.
“It’s not just a marriage, it’s a representation of the future king of Jordan,” said political analyst Amer Sabaileh. “The prince’s business is over.” In times of economic hardship, including persistent youth unemployment and a recession, weddings can create a brief moment of feel-good for Jordanians.
A week after Jordan’s 77th birthday, palace officials turned the event into a public relations exercise.
Combining tradition with modernity, the royal family has launched a wedding hashtag (#Celebrating Al Hussein) and ubiquitous signage that incorporates the couple’s initials into the Arabic word for “We rejoice.” Photos from Alseif’s henna party and The reel — the traditional pre-wedding celebration featuring the bride and her female friends and relatives — caused a stir in state media along with the couple’s engagement ceremony in Saudi Arabia last summer.
The kingdom declared a public holiday on Thursday so that throngs could gather after the wedding ceremony to wave to the couple’s fleet of red Land Rover jeeps – a nod to the red coat worn by the country’s founder during his reign Horseback riders traditional procession in tribute to King Abdullah I.
Tens of thousands of well-wishers are expected to flock to free concerts and cultural events. Huge screens are set up across the country for crowds to watch the event.
The signing of the engagement will take place at Amman’s Zahran Palace, a scene not seen since 1993, when Abdullah, born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents, was born on an equally sunny June day. Rania married. Decades ago, Abdullah’s father, the late King Hussein, took his vows in the same garden as his second wife, British citizen Antoinette Gardiner.
As well as the Prince and Princess of Wales, the guest list included a bevy of foreign aristocrats and dignitaries, including senior royals from Europe and Asia, as well as first lady Jill Biden and US climate envoy John Kerry. Other possible attendees include Saudi aristocrats, as Alseif’s mother traces her roots to the influential wife of Saudi Arabia’s founder King Abdulaziz, whose billionaire father owns a large family business in the country. construction company.
After the ceremony, the wedding party will move to the Al-Husseiniya Palace, a 30-minute drive away, for the reception, entertainment and state banquet. The royals are expected to welcome more than 1,700 guests at the reception.
Experts believe the marriage would benefit the Hashemite family, the Saudi family’s historical rivals in the East.
Jordan has recently sought closer ties with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab oil states that once provided billions of dollars to the aid-dependent nation but have since reined in spending.
While restaurants blared echoing Arabic wedding songs and cars honked in celebration in the city centre, some said the royal fairytale was filled with joy as Jordanians struggled to make ends meet.
Bookseller Osama, 25, was so excited about the occasion that he adorned his car and shop windows with portraits of the royals. But he also knows that reality will return soon.
“Of course, it’s joyful,” he said, declining to give his last name for fear of reprisal. “But in a few days, we’ll get back to our questions.”
