Shot To The Heart

For Jordanians, Shotgun Weddings Can Be a Problem (WSJ sub req):

MADABA, Jordan -- It's wedding season here. Florists are preparing bouquets bursting with white roses, lilies and irises. And in a noisy basement print shop, a 45-year-old German-made press pounds out thousands of invitations bearing entwined hearts and the message: "Gunfire is forbidden."

The message is part of an unusual campaign in Jordan, where many people like to punctuate nuptials and other summer celebrations by aiming skyward and squeezing off a few rounds from assault rifles and handguns. Unfortunately, because of misfires and the law of gravity, the tradition transforms some weddings into funeral processions.

"You have to wear a helmet if you are going to go to a Jordanian wedding," says Ali Zenat, who runs a small social-services agency here.

It's so embarrassing when you show up at a wedding wearing the same color helmet as the bridesmaids.

Mr. Zenat also delivers bouquets to weddings throughout the district, which is south of Amman and abuts the Dead Sea in west central Jordan. Each bouquet -- he says he has personally delivered more than 100 -- arrives with a card that says, "Our wedding will be more beautiful without gunfire."

Interestingly enough, this is the same message that was included in the invitation that we recently received for Saint Paul's upcoming nuptials. Personally I don't have a problem with it, but the other day in the hallway here at FL corporate headquarters, I overheard JB muttering that not bringing guns to the wedding was "PC nonsense" and something about "they'll have to take it out of my cold dead hands." Glad I'm not an usher.