How do people get married in Saudi Arabia?

[Dave]

You can't see the person your marrying and I heard all you can do is talk to her father and family members about her or something like that, I'm confused how would that work?

[Macaney]

no, you will able to see the person before you marry her, and when you are ready to marry her, than you will go to the masjid and make nikax, i mean the ceremony

[Michael Corleone]

it just didnt work most of the time.

[Mintee]

well its an elaborated thing..
first off.. normally someone knows someone who knows a person that might want to get married, so families and friends start talking and setting up the couple.. The parents of the couples are informed and they set up a meeting for the couple to meet.. The girl can either agree or disagree.. If she agrees, then there is no "dating" in the western sense. They go to a sheik and get legally engaged, then comes the so called "dating" islamic style.. The intended groom can come to her house, sit with her and get to know her (all under chaperoned eyes though). The engagement can be as short or as long as you want.. I prefer long engagements so you can get to know each other and bond and fall in love. ..Also they can go out together at this point as long as she is chaperoned by a brother, father, uncle, granddad etc....
If for some reason after this engagement that they just find they are not compatable, they can break it off legally and go their seperate ways and her chastity is still in tact.....

other ways is that somehow a girl who has already went through university and might be employed at some point meets a fellow employee or customer that frequents the place and they themselves sort of chat it up and fall in love themselves, or they meet on facebook or some other social network..

they decide to marry and inform their parents, then it all goes from what I said above..

so its not all "blind" action as you'd think...

[Muslim Lady]

@ Michael Corleone traditional marriage work more than love marriage you have to read the numbers of divorces to judge.


you can see the woman before marriage that's ok to know if you like her or not,so first you call her family then you go to visit her family and see her, talk to her, if you like her then you can tell her family about that you have to be serious about marriage so you can still talk together to know each other more but with some restrict to forbid anything to happen before marriage, that's called engagement but after marriage contract done they become married even before wedding party /ceremony some go out together but it recommended to never have sex before wedding party.

during engagement if they know each other more and don't like each other they can delete it.

regardless of type of marriage love/ traditional the both shouldn't have sex before marriage so love is not wrong in islam but sex is wrong out of marriage.

some people love each other and get marry but men most of them like to use woman who sacrifice for her love and don't give her all her rights and use that love against her!
not all men same but i am talking about what most happen over here.

[Gigi]

It works more or less as mintee described. In the recent past though - say 15 years ago-there were people that did not have the chance to see the wife at all as either she or her family did not accept.
I am not sure though if this is acceptable amongst the youth nowadays albeit I have heard young people saying that ok - a picture at least would be ok ( which admittedly rather shocked me)