Saturday evening  I took an overpriced taxi to the airport so I could head to Riyadh. The man working at the counter recognized who I was  while I was wearing a niqab before even checking my ID, which was a neat experience. In reality he probably only reconized me because I don’t speak a single word of Arabic, though. An hour or so later I was in Riyadh, getting in the car with my fiance and his sister, too nervous to even function.

It was my last night as an unmarried lady.

We chatted the entire way home, but to be honest, I don’t even know what we talked about. Probably how much it sucks to live in Appalachia or something dumb like that. I was seriously too nervous to even care. In retrospect I can’t even believe how nervous I was. We went to bed as soon as we got home, as we had to wake up at 5AM to start the marriage process. I couldn’t sleep at all that night.

The next morning I woke up early and got ready to go marry the man of my dreams. Considering I tossed and turned all night I was exhausted. I waited for him in the living room, where all his sisters came to greet me. His mom wasn’t in town as she had already made plans to visit a different city, because even though my husband is great at many things, he is terrible at planning.

My fiance, his sister, and myself headed to the courthouse, which was quite far away. The extreme traffic didn’t help much, either. For some reason I felt sooooo car sick, which was just weird because I haven’t been carsick since I came to this country. I sat for what felt like forever in the separate female waiting room with his sister while he prepared the paperwork. Then he called us to let us know it was go time.

We entered a room with a sheik (a man here in KSA who does legal things, maybe like a judge in USA), myself, my groom, his sister, and two of his brothers. While Mo had went to the courts to to talk to a sheik, twice, our case got assigned to a different sheik, and to be frank, this dude was kind of an asshole.

This sheik was flat out refusing to marry us, claiming that I was not a Muslim. Yes, I am a Muslim and have been for almost 3 years. My documents that make me legal here say I am a Muslim. And to top it off I am in a room full of people claiming that I am a Muslim. But that wasn’t good enough for this old grump. M didn’t need any proof he was a Muslim, yet I need papers? Are you kidding me?

M told him that the other sheik said it wouldn’t be an issue, and he would marry us, so the sheik we were with told M to go talk to the one who said it was okay. And while M was out of the room, I really got fed up with our shitty sheik… and so I spoke my mind to him….

check part two to find out what happens next.