Long Distance Wedding

Halfway through winter, and amongst the gazillions of weddings around, I came across one that just shows how far we've come technologically. With my cousin living abroad and having reached a “suitable” age for getting married according to Bangladeshi standards, the family decided to get him married without further delay, over Skype. That's right, the bride-to-be was here with us, and the groom some hundred miles across the globe, but who's to stop them from getting married?
Now this is nothing new. Ever since video chatting was introduced and Bangladesh acquired ample bandwidth to support one, digital weddings have been going on. Before that, telephones were used for such long distance weddings. I can't say whether the postal service ever came in handy regarding that matter before telephones, though. But I digress. Mainly, this was the first such wedding that I encountered, so you can understand my excitement.
The preparations began the way they usually do, with month-long shopping sprees and strategic planning of every step. We purchased a modem with a “limitless” connection speed solely so that the wedding can go on without a glitch. Although it was a small ceremony with the closest of family members, the number of guests exceeded 50, so we had to arrange a multimedia projector and screen to be connected to the laptop for the benefit of the guests. It was, however, the festivities on the other side of the webcam that won. My cousin contacted a few other relatives and the small Bangladeshi community that lives in that city. Together they threw a grand party the deshi style, with an overwhelming meal and traditional Bangladeshi wedding decorations. Even the wedding lights were affixed. The excitement level there was much more, and rightfully so; when you haven't attended a deshi wedding in so long, you try to make the most of what you get.
On this end, however, we were a little agitated. Weddings in general take a long time, and even more so when it's long distance. First, our reliable internet proved unreliable, and took us quite a long time to connect the Skype call. Once the video call was established – bam! – the electricity went out. Thank god for generators, though. Next, the “kazi shaheb” here started filling out the forms and taking a bunch of signatures from a chosen few. Once that was over, the “kazi shaheb” on the other end had to be legally vested, and only then was he allowed to conduct the wedding. So essentially, the same wedding was conducted twice, once in each country, with two different sets of munajats.
The rest of the ceremony went as usual, with introduction of all the FnF done and blessings sent via the web. Everything ended on a happy note, and I was just happy to have enough food. But there was one major regret – the bride and groom didn't have a picture together. Then again, Photoshop's the way to go. It's amazing the wonders these little 1's and 0's can do.