Mass Wedding Ceremony in Sana,Yemen Friday Nov 01,2013

 

Only men attend the mass wedding ceremony in Yemen's capital Sana'a - women have their own ceremony

Mass weddings are held by charities to help poorer couples avoid the ruinous cost of private weddings

The Orphan Foundation charity organised the mass wedding ceremony for 4,000 couples in the capital Sana'a.

 The event assists orphaned individuals without family, who otherwise would not be able to afford a ceremony. Weddings are expensive in Yemen - bachelors have to pay their fiancée's family to marry their daughter. The groom and his father split the cost of a dowry to the bride's father, normally around £3,000, and the family of the groom is also expected to pay for the wedding expenses

The £5million mass wedding ceremony, funded by Qatar's former Emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, is expected to make the Guinness Book of World Records

According to the foundation, representatives of Guinness Book of World Records arrived in Yemen on Wednesday night to document the ceremony as one of the largest communal weddings in the world