Big fat gypsy weddings

Being a sociologist I just knew I was going to love this new series. It delves into the culture of travellers and was rather fascinating. What I learnt last night:

1. For women its all about the wedding. They get married anywhere round 16. From childhood they look forward to their wedding.
2. Men are men. They work, they provide, they fight, they are men. Women do the housework, look after the children. Gender norms are the traditional ones.
3. Travellers love big dresses and will travel many miles and spend lots of money to have custom made ones for their wedding. The one I saw last night weighed 5 stone.
4. Traveller women have some serious strength to be able to walk in those dresses. Power to them.
5. There are strict cultural norms such as they cannot drink until married, a young girl must have a chaperone or be in a group if they are around a young man at all time except it seems weddings.
6. There is a thing called grabbing, where boys can grab the girl and ask for a kiss. If the female accepts and it normal for them to play about unaccepting to see how interested the boy is and keep him trying, then this signifys the first step of courtship. Last night we witnessed one girl be grabbed, so I am presuming next week theres more information on the next steps of the courtship process. Looking forward to that.
   
7. Travellers can live in houses, not just caravans.
8. Travellers are very house proud
9. Travellers tend to have big families