WORLD NEWS UPDATE: AFGHANS MARRY N MASS CEREMONY IN BID TO CUT COSTS

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Agency Report

In the Afghan capital, fifty couples tied the knot in a combined ceremony on Monday. This is a growing trend aimed at bringing down the exorbitant costs associated with traditional weddings in poor nations.

The ceremony was relatively austere, but the couples were joined in matrimony in one of the dozens of opulent wedding halls that dot Kabul.

Following the Taliban’s return in August 2021, weddings have essentially become quiet events with no dancing or music allowed because the rulers considered it to be against Islam.

There was not a single lady there, as more than a hundred turbaned men wearing traditional shalwar kameez chatted in groups in front of the City Star wedding hall near the airport.

To transport the newlyweds away, they decked out cars with red plastic roses in the shape of hearts and green ribbons.

The 18-year-old Roohullah Rezayi told AFP he could not afford a solo wedding and that he was leaving with his wife in a few hours.

“A traditional wedding would have cost us at least 200,000 to 250,000 Afghanis ($2,800 to $3,600), but this time it will be between 10,000 and 15,000 Afghanis,” he said.

The young man, a member of the Hazara Shiite minority and from Ghor province, earns barely 350 Afghanis per day doing odd jobs.

“We invited 35 people from our two families, otherwise it would have been 300 to 400,” said the groom, a plastic flower in the breast pocket of his waistcoat worn over a white tunic.

Donations to each couple from the Selab Foundation, who organised the event, are equivalent to $1,600 — a huge amount in one of the poorest countries in the world.

They will also leave with a cake, a kit containing toothpaste, shampoo and moisturiser, and a carpet, blanket and a few household appliances to start married life.