"First you join a gym, or in my case remember that you already belong to one and decide to pay them the first visit since 1998. Then you go on a diet, preferably an extremely painful and ridiculous one. There's the soup diet, the grapefruit diet, the coffee-and-cucumber-diet, the no-meat-no-chicken-no-bread-no-pasta-just-a-lot-of-fruit-diet. Then if you feel like indulging yourself, there's the manicure, pedicure, massage and facials, or if you're a poor student like me, you end up putting yogurt on your face, cucumbers on your eyes and painting your nails over the bathroom sink.

Then of course, there's the Mother.
The Mother is usually a sane person, until you mention the wedding. She then loses her cool and evolves into this rather scary creature that bosses you around like an army general in a military campaign. She frets about your hairstyle, your shoes, and nearly throws a fit when you ask if you can wear your jeans to the wedding. Then she starts hyperventilating when you refuse to wear the sparkly, sequined and very purple dress your aunt got you from Turkey. She insists that you wear all the family gold, and when you try to object, she howls that you will bring disgrace to your family's name and you'll never marry this way. But you say, "I'm only 21!" to which she responds, "Old enough to give me grandchildren!" You have no fitting reply, and therefore let her have her way.

Finally the dreaded day arrives, and you wobble out of the car in your very purple dress and seven-inch heels only to find that it's open air on grass, and you spend the whole night trying very hard not to break your ankle, tear your dress, or catch pneumonia. Your first duty is to make the rounds, which means kissing and cooing at people you've never seen before in your life, but who embrace you like a lost daughter.

Then you have to pass The Aunts' Tables.
In every wedding, there is always a corner filled with Aunts' Tables. The suspects are usually over the age of fifty, dressed in black,preferably with sequins, and wear enough gold to feed a small country. They have smiles that make the Wicked Witch of The West look sweet. You stand there like a deer in the headlights, while they peer at you under their glittering turbans, saying "O'balek!" while their eyes tell you "You're going down, girl!" Then they give you the Egyptian once-over, quickly calculating your net profit worth and searching their databases for any possible 'Arees who would fit your match. The moment of torture is over, you are permitted to leave, and you finally totter over to your table that is filled with other sulking and unmarried girls (and you wonder if there's a conspiracy behind this).

Ju st as you sit down and breathe a sigh of relief, the music strikes up and someone drags you out of your chair, insisting that you stand with the other unmarried girls in a circle around the bride.

You're not really supposed to dance, so you just sway from side to side, clapping feebly, and praying you won't embarrass yourself in front of the Aunts.
You feel like Miss Piggy.

The song is over, you excuse yourself and go hide in the bathroom, checking your makeup, re-applying your lipstick, playing with your hair and wishing fervently you'd brought a pack of cards with you. Two hours later, you get bored with making flower arrangements out of tissuepaper, so you sneak back into the party, trying to blend into the background while your clearly insane friends laugh on the dance-floor. The rest of the night is an endless, mind-numbing daze that you spend stealing cashew nut bowls from other tables, playing snake on your mobile and hoping the buffet will open soon. If the wedding hadn’t been conveniently set in the middle of the desert, you would have sneaked out and called a Hertz cab, and if your friends hadn't been so obviously enjoying themselves, you probably would have bribed, if not throttled one of them to take you home.
You are trapped.

And then, at some obscene hour of the morning, after the singer and the Russian belly dancer have finished, the buffet is finally opened, but The Aunts get there first, pushing and knuckling their way to the food like sheep in a cattle market, and in ten minutes flat, they strip the buffet bare except for a few bones and some beans. And before you have a chance to get your hands on the beans, your friends announce that they are tired and will leave at once. After making the rounds again, and saying goodbye to people you've never seen before in your life, but hug you like they'll never see you again, you walk past the Aunt's Table and smile feebly, to which they shout out "O'balek!" again, only this time more threateningly.

Once out of the venue, you slip your heels off with a sigh of relief, walk on the ice-cold pavement in your swollen feet, and vow to never let your mother have her way again. One hour later, you're home at last, blissfully sinking into the covers, telling yourself it was all just a bad dream, and tomorrow you will be in your jeans and sneakers again.

Tomorrow comes, and your mother tells you you're invited to an engagement in two days."