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Julie, standing with her matron of honor, looks straight ahead, seemingly unaware of what goes on around her. While wedding guests dance in energetic lines in front of the bridal table, she recognizes no one and focuses on what is a new bride's proper behavior., Katrina Thomas's notes: An Albanian wedding in the Bronx, NY in 1986 retains unique customs based on tribal culture which signal that a bride is joining another clan. Marriages are arranged but a matched pair may refuse the partner. On the morning of the wedding, while the bride dresses, her family entertains guests at a large celebration. When she is ready to go to church, they say farewell to their daughter because they will not attend either her nuptials or the bridegroom's reception in the evening. In fact, after the wedding she is not permitted to see her family or return to her childhood home for a specified number of days. When she does visit, she is no longer treated like a daughter but as a guest. For a year after marriage, she is considered to be a bride and when her own sisters enter a room she stands in respect. As Albanians have become Americanized many of these customs have been dropped.

To comply with the custom of a bride circling the central hearth, when she arrives at her new home, Julie is led by the best man three times around a candle set on the carpet because there is no central hearth in the bridegroom's apartment., Katrina Thomas's notes: An Albanian wedding in the Bronx, NY in 1986 retains unique customs based on tribal culture which signal that a bride is joining another clan. Marriages are arranged but a matched pair may refuse the partner. On the morning of the wedding, while the bride dresses, her family entertains guests at a large celebration. When she is ready to go to church, they say farewell to their daughter because they will not attend either her nuptials or the bridegroom's reception in the evening. In fact, after the wedding she is not permitted to see her family or return to her childhood home for a specified number of days. When she does visit, she is no longer treated like a daughter but as a guest. For a year after marriage, she is considered to be a bride and when her own sisters enter a room she stands in respect. As Albanians have become Americanized many of these customs have been dropped.

In the couple's home, Wahiba, dressed for the wedding, which announces her marriage to a Brooklyn cousin that occurred months earlier in Jerusalem, joins relatives who dance. A tabla (drum) they brought sets the beat for dancing while women ululate their joy., Katrina Thomas's notes: I photographed Arab Muslim celebrations billed as engagements, henna evenings and weddings in Brooklyn, NY and also in Dearborn, MI, which maintains the largest concentration of Arabs in the U.S. Couples may be matched; some meet at family weddings. Muslims make a distinction between marriage and a wedding. The marriage solemnizes a written or an oral agreement, al-mahr, money awarded to the bride by the bridegroom, and usually takes place privately in the home. It is not photographable because the bride and groom remain in separate rooms. Presumably, the marriage is not consummated until after the wedding, which announces the union of man and wife to the community. It takes place any time from a few hours after the marriage to a few years. A henna evening may be celebrated before either or both. The bridegroom's family pays for all festivities. What is distinctive besides the lack of alcohol, except clandestinely, and the sexes being divided so that women dance on one side of the hall and men dance -- dipping, hopping, stamping their feet -- on the other side, is that the bride and groom do not participate. They sit like royalty on a dais presiding over their jubilant guests.

During the henna evening, Soha and Naim are enthroned between their two mothers standing beside them. The bridegroom's mother bears a pillow on her head on which is pinned jewelry which will be awarded to the bride. The bride's mother bears a bowl of henna decorated with greens and candles. Arabs consider henna halal, meaning that it is holy., Katrina Thomas's notes: I photographed Arab Muslim celebrations billed as engagements, henna evenings and weddings in Brooklyn, NY and also in Dearborn, MI, which maintains the largest concentration of Arabs in the U.S. Couples may be matched; some meet at family weddings. Muslims make a distinction between marriage and a wedding. The marriage solemnizes a written or an oral agreement, al-mahr, money awarded to the bride by the bridegroom, and usually takes place privately in the home. It is not photographable because the bride and groom remain in separate rooms. Presumably, the marriage is not consummated until after the wedding, which announces the union of man and wife to the community. It takes place any time from a few hours after the marriage to a few years. A henna evening may be celebrated before either or both. The bridegroom's family pays for all festivities. What is distinctive besides the lack of alcohol, except clandestinely, and the sexes being divided so that women dance on one side of the hall and men dance -- dipping, hopping, stamping their feet -- on the other side, is that the bride and groom do not participate. They sit like royalty on a dais presiding over their jubilant guests.

As the first sunlight glances off the roofs, in preparation for marriage, Sam Ath, known as Ath, and Savath are blessed by a Buddhist monk. Shaking a pink rose, the monk sprinkles holy water on the couple. Friends are present but play no active role in the proceedings., Katrina Thomas's notes: The Cambodians I photographed are newly arrived refugees, having fled the communist Khmer Rouge after the fall of Phnom Penh in 1975. Many came without their families, who had been killed or had remained to guard their properties. In the U.S. Khmer weddings usually take place on a single day. I photographed four, three on a single day, one lasting two days. All are abbreviated when compared to those in the home country. With little guidance, they try to keep traditions for a proper celebration but without their native substances or their own foods. Rather than falling in love, all the couples were matched by others and most weddings are conducted by their own people without the licenses to do so legally but able to marry them in the eyes of their own community.

During her wedding celebration, Julie neither speaks nor eats, and drinks only water. She stands virtually motionless with her matron of honor, her new husband's aunt, serving as a chaperone on her wedding day., Katrina Thomas's notes: An Albanian wedding in the Bronx, NY in 1986 retains unique customs based on tribal culture which signal that a bride is joining another clan. Marriages are arranged but a matched pair may refuse the partner. On the morning of the wedding, while the bride dresses, her family entertains guests at a large celebration. When she is ready to go to church, they say farewell to their daughter because they will not attend either her nuptials or the bridegroom's reception in the evening. In fact, after the wedding she is not permitted to see her family or return to her childhood home for a specified number of days. When she does visit, she is no longer treated like a daughter but as a guest. For a year after marriage, she is considered to be a bride and when her own sisters enter a room she stands in respect. As Albanians have become Americanized many of these customs have been dropped.