The happy couple squeezed into the hotel through the security metal detector to the accompaniment of traditional chanting and drum-beating from the wedding guests.
The bride entered on one side of the swimming pool, the groom on the other. As they met on a little ornamental bridge over the pool, fireworks whizzed, video cameras rolled, and they chastely kissed. To the booming soundtrack of Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, they danced on the bridge amidst clouds of dry ice.
It was an ordinary, everyday, Muslim wedding last week in a hotel in Amman, the capital of Jordan, where I happened to be staying briefly while on holiday. As Whitney Houston concluded, the beaming couple took up occupation of a white, throne-like couch, and presided over the enthusiastic dancing of their guests to the distinctive Arabic music of the Middle East. (There was of course not a drop of alcohol in sight for the entire evening.)
This easy musical symbiosis of East and West seemed entirely natural to the wedding party. It is a reflection of the relatively laid-back attitude of Jordanians to all sorts of outside influences - an approach which has characterised this remarkable country for thousands of years.
Consequently, the news last Monday that elsewhere in Amman a lone gunman opened fire on a group of western tourists, killing one UK national and injuring a number of others, came as a shock. For westerners, wandering around Amman and elsewhere in Jordan, there is no sense of threat or hostility.
What you hear most often is a heartfelt "ahlan wa sahlan", the Jordanian equivalent of a hundred-thousand welcomes.
All of which is of course cold comfort to the family of Chris Stokes, shot dead in Amman on Monday. He was an accountant from Manchester, who had spent the past few years working in Ireland.
Although the gunman clearly targeted a group of westerners and shouted "Allahu akbar" (God is great) as he opened fire, it appears at this stage that he was acting alone rather than as part of any terrorist organisation.
Tony Blair, in condemning the shooting, attempted to link it to the killings the same day of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, emphasising again his world view of a global threat to the West from Islamic fundamentalism. The lumping together of all such incidents into an all-embracing concept of "axis of evil" assaults on westerners by Muslims serves to fuel a dangerously divisive paranoia.
Take Jordan, for instance. Although a Muslim country, it contains a number of shades of political opinion, from the pro-Western King Abdullah II and his government, to more fundamentalist Islamic groups which have strong support among the urban population, many of whom are of Palestinian origin.
It remains, however, one of the most stable and peaceful countries in the Middle East. The Islamists condemn the use of violence for political ends just as strongly as the government, as was clear from the local response of outrage to al-Qaeda's attack on Amman last year, when over 60 people, mainly Jordanians, were killed in three suicide bombings of hotels. Widely viewed as Jordan's 9/11, it was a rare act of terrorism on Jordanian soil. The country has been described as being quite literally between Iraq and a hard place - namely Israel - and it also shares borders with Syria, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia.
Despite the animosity between a number of its neighbours, Jordan has managed to remain on friendly terms with all of them. It is a high-wire balancing act of awesome proportions when one considers that the country has taken in well over a million refugees from Palestine, Iraq and, most recently, Lebanon.
The former king, Hussein, made peace with Israel in the mid-1990s. Although significantly strained by the attack on Lebanon, cordial relations with Israel have been maintained by his son and successor, Abdullah, whose cherubic countenance stares out from shops and cafes throughout the country. Jordan and Israel now have plans to co-operate on a range of economic ventures, including the saving of the Dead Sea which is in danger of drying up completely in just over 40 years' time.
There is a strong sense that Jordanians are proud of their political moderation and their ability to make and keep the peace with Israel, which not even considerable public anger at the assault on Lebanon managed to derail.
Which is not to say that they don't have their problems. Threats to destabilise the country are ever-present. It has no large natural resources of its own, has a serious water shortage and an unemployment rate which is estimated at 30 per cent. While the king and the government are pursuing a "national agenda" to increase personal freedoms, human rights abuses, particularly the use of torture by the security police, remain a serious concern of the UN.
Nonetheless, the overwhelming impression from the streets and arid desert landscapes of Jordan is of a people managing to survive as honestly as they can amid the power struggles which surround them on all sides.