JORDAN: They were dainty black kitten-heeled shoes. Size five with pointy toes, they seemed pathetically incongruous amid the rumpled, blood-soaked tablecloths, shattered wineglasses and gaping ceiling of the Radisson hotel's Philadelphia suite, a local favourite for weddings.
All around were the wilting remains of bridal bouquets that had been ground into the carpet by screaming, panicking guests the night before. Someone pointed out the spot where the suicide bomber detonated the belt of explosives packed around his waist. Behind it, a wall had been gouged out by the impact: exposed ventilation chutes, cables and twisted metal rods hung limply from above. On the nearby dais lay a dust-covered men's dinner jacket, splattered with dried blood.
This is the room where Ashraf al-Khaled planned to celebrate his nuptials in the typically boisterous Jordanian fashion, surrounded by hundreds of friends and family. Instead, it became the room where he would lose 10 relatives in the most devastating of the nearly simultaneous blasts that ripped through three hotels in Amman on Wednesday night.
In the cold light of the morning after, the jaunty tone of a poster advertising the suite's availability for wedding parties jarred. Its unfortunate headline read "Happy-ever-aftering!" Standing in the crowded emergency unit of Amman's Istiklal hospital just hours after the bombings, Ashraf, a 32-year-old medical technician living in Amman, had told The Irish Times how it took just minutes for his wedding day to turn to tragedy.
In an open-necked shirt and black suit still covered in dust, Ashraf was pale but calm, possessing the unnerving composure of a man still in deep shock.
"We were on the way to the reception hall in the hotel when it happened. Our guests were waiting for us," he said, surrounded by weeping women and children still waiting for news of missing loved ones.
Whispering he and his wife Nadia had both lost their fathers, he said: "Deep inside I am in so much pain that I can barely speak. I am in so much shock.
"But there is one thing the world must remember: this is not Islam. We don't kill people like this. It has nothing to do with my religion, Islam.
"Thank God, my wife is okay. This is the day I will never forget. It's my bad luck," he said, shrugging.
Both Ashraf and Nadia were treated for minor injuries. In a city still struggling to come to terms with the worst terrorist attack ever on Jordanian soil, the story of their ill-fated wedding is the one that has touched people most.
"Obviously, anyone who blows himself up in a wedding hall is not someone who wants the good of his country or the good of any human being," Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Muasher said, summing up the feelings of many here.
At demonstrations held throughout Amman yesterday afternoon, people deplored all three bombings but were particularly aghast that someone could target a wedding party.
One protester held a hand-painted, black-and-white poster depicting a woman crying with her head in her hands. Behind her loomed the city's landmark citadel. "Don't cry our bride," the caption read, "Don't cry our Amman."
Dr Said Abuhasna, a surgeon from the UAE and guest at the Radisson hotel, told The Irish Times how he treated many of the dying and injured amid the confusion and panic that followed the explosion.
"I pronounced several people dead at the scene," he said. "People were crying out for help. There were young girls with severed limbs, others bleeding massively. These are images I will never, ever forget."
A Canadian couple holidaying at the hotel recalled how they thought at first the blast was a round of fireworks set off by the wedding party.
"We were in our room on the 11th floor and we could feel the powerful vibrations from the blast up there," said Janet Armstrong, a retired teacher from Ontario.
"We looked out our window and saw people being carried out of the hotel. One stood out - a woman held up by two other people. She was wearing a beautiful, elaborately embroidered, white dress but it was covered in blood.
"She must have been the bride."