Mystery Visit

Okay, I confess to checking the ol' Site Meter pretty regularly. It's interesting to see how people end up here; lately I've had a mad rush from Majikthise and Ezra Klein (hi, guys!). But the other day I found that someone in Sri Lanka had Googled

wedding preparation marriage night virgin shy bride

and landed here. My initial thought was that it was, well, a "shy bride" looking for advice. I was about 30 seconds into my bonding with this imagined quaking woman across the seas when I realized the visitor might well have been a prospective bridegroom instead, looking for tips on how to overcome his new wife's reticence. Hoping to find out, I googled the search terms myself (using google.lk).

I found a page recounting some woman bitching about getting married in the Dominican Republic, and this much more interesting page about (I assume) traditional Sri Lankan weddings. Good lord, it's very complicated and involves mats. Lots and lots of mats. With strict etiquette about color, and plaiting, and the order in which they're presented and what offerings are spread on which ones and how many get tied onto the bride and groom in layers. It sounds exhausting. Lots of food too, and tea towels, and mosquito netting. I don't know that the bride should be too worried about the wedding night since there would seem to be a high likelihood that both bride and groom will crash out for a good twelve hours after this endurance event of pre-nup preparations, the mat-laden ceremony itself, and the mongo feast afterwards. Night two is undoubtably a different story, though.

Let's see, what else... the search terms will also lead you to a compendium of marriage-relevant Quran verses, as well as to a Christian blog titled "Modestly Yours," offering this bon mot about a 31-year-old virgin bride:

She also notes that while most brides and grooms today boogie the night away at their wedding reception, she and her groom were outta there in record time, they couldn't wait to begin their honeymoon.

There you have it. I have no idea if any of these pages gave the Googler what she/he was looking for. She/he did spend a couple of minutes here, with two page views, so if nothing else maybe I managed to provide some amusement.