Fashionably Late? A New Expectation

By Wendy Moore, Director of Communications, HQ

Showing up on time for wedding receptions in Kazakhstan is a very big mistake: One that you will pay for in frayed nerves and dashed expectations while fashionably wearing your best dress clothes, dress shoes and nicest, polished smile.

Have you ever gone into a situation with huge expectations, walked into a room expecting to make a difference and felt the possibility of meaningful moments only to meet wilting disappointment?

If any of that rings true for you, then you can relate.

Learning how to recognize and manage expectations – not just your own but also those of your host culture too – is a foundational skill for living and working cross-culturally. It’s one of the first things our REI staff have the opportunity to learn when they arrive overseas and begin settling into their new homes.

The fashionably late bride and groom with their wedding party

What did you expect?

You didn’t even know you had expectations, as you sit there outside at a sea of empty café tables with two small children running around (also dressed in their best), waiting – waiting and waiting. Nearly two hours later, the bride and groom arrive in all their radiant joy.

As your rumpled family shuffles into the reception hall, jostled and pushed by happy relatives and friends, you wonder what the two-hour delayed start means. Will they cut some things out of the program because the bride and groom arrived late?

One of the young ladies sitting at your table, a friend of the bride, speaks some English and you start a conversation. You ask what you can expect for the evening’s events. You express concern about the late start and how late the party will go, glancing at the children and assessing the approach to meltdown.

A lesson in cross-cultural communication

You are shocked by her answer. This new friend reveals two very important things you didn’t know before but will never forget; in fact, these revelations shape your expectations into a more realistic perspective.

First, you learn that guests never ever show up on time for weddings. Your newfound guide says this with a hearty laugh and shrug like this is common knowledge, then proceeds to describe the toasting tradition – every guest must stand up and give a toast to the wedding couple. This is a tradition your husband came prepared for with an expertly crafted toast written in Russian on a piece of paper tucked into his pocket. You breathe a sigh of relief far too quickly.

The tamada (emcee) with wedding guests

The second part of her answer is even a bit more distressing than the first: She goes on to explain that the tamada (emcee) invites guests to the front to give toasts in order of how closely they are related to or know the wedding couple. Those closest to the couple will give their toasts early in the evening – broken up by lots of dancing and entertainment – and those least close to the couple give their toasts toward the end.

With a sense of dread, you ask her how late these wedding receptions typically go. They normally go until at least 1:00 or 2:00am. Now, it’s only 9:30pm and both children are melting down, your feet are screaming in your dress shoes and your polished smile is fading. A sneaky sense of panic takes over.

Learning how to pivot

Humbled, you realize the inflated sense of yourself you brought to this party. With faltering optimism, you cheerfully offer your children some juice to drink and borsok (a traditional deep-fried bread) to chew on. A little stunned, amid the happy laughter and loud music, you look at your husband and wonder, now what?

Putting your heads together, you lay out the options. Bottomline, you are embarrassed to admit that your dilapidated family cannot fulfill the wedding guest requirements at this time.

So, you revise your plan from staying to deliver an impressive and moving toast to staying just long enough to honor the newly married couple and leaving before your family implodes.

Traditional Kazakh dancers perform at the wedding

You turn back toward the young woman at your table to let her know: your family will discreetly leave before the party is over. She sternly responds, telling you in no uncertain terms, that you cannot do this – it would be really offensive. What? To offend a brand-new friend in such a way! 

You and your husband huddle again and devise a compromise: He will take the children home, and you will stay to the end to give the toast. You take the now crumpled and dampened paper with your toast written in Russian and plan to deliver it to the wedding couple.

You wave goodbye to your family, as they pile in a taxi and ride away. And you head to the bathroom to freshen up and re-calibrate your heart and mind.

The moral of the story

In due time, after hours of eating and dancing, you eventually deliver your well-intended toast to a tired and dwindling audience. The bride, beaming with pride, throws her arms around you and squeezes you tight. Although not in the way you imagined, the evening turned out fine and the investment made in friendship is all that mattered.

Wendy and her family at Medeo, Kazakhstan, 2006 (no family photos of our attendance at this wedding exist)

You are thankful lessons learned through dashed expectations are never wasted – humility refined and understanding deepened. Sometimes being “fashionably late” simply means something entirely different across cultures.

When entering new situations, our staff have learned it’s important to leave behind pumped-up, unyielding expectations and bring a hopeful openness and purpose instead. To thrive cross-culturally is to enter an ongoing process of acquiring communication skills and better self-awareness.

*A true-life story from my family’s early days living in Kazakhstan.