He is expected to provide shabka, an Egyptian term used to refer to an expensive diamond ring; mahr, the Arabic word for dowry; and mo'akhar, which requires the man to sign a contract agreeing to pay his wife a certain amount of money in case they get divorced.
"[Egyptian families] dress, work like Americans, and speak short prom dresses at home with their children," said Nagat Bassiouni, New Jersey-based matchmaker. "However, when it comes to marriage, they are still preoccupied” with the traditional niceties.
Bassiouni is a 60-year-old fashion designer whose social network reaches Egyptian communities as far away as Canada. She has been a go-between for nearly 18 years, and says she arranges seven or so marriages a year.
A typical Egyptian family would require the following from a suitor; first the shabka which consists of a diamond wedding ring, a solitaire and sometimes, a collier, earrings and a bracelet, she said. "Some families are so demanding; they require a $20,000 shabka while others are modest A line Prom Dresses feel content with a $5,000 or $10,000," she added. 
As to the dowry, most families settle for a symbolic amount of money as long as the suitor provides a furnished apartment. Exactly like their compatriots at home, Egyptian families require the groom to share the cost of the wedding party, which ranges between $20,000 and $45,000, added Bassiouni. However, the divorce settlement is not negotiable.
"I did not see anyone who did not have mo’akhar,” she said. Matchmakers say it can range from $5,000 or as high as $100,000 or even more. 
After completing her noon prayers, Magda kamel sat on Baby Doll Prom Dresses silky rug in her pink headscarf and paisley tunic raising her hands to the sky and murmuring additional prayers in her apartment located in a skyscraper on the exclusive Upper East Side in Manhattan.
As soon as she was done, she grabbed her large, worn-out phonebook filled with hand-written names on every page of Arab and Muslim families trying to marry their children off. For nearly 13 years, Egyptian-American Kamel has been one of the most active matchmakers in the city’s growing Arab community.
She took on the task driven by religious devotion and a desire to help Arab Muslim girls. But she contends that most Arab families, including Egyptian, can have outsized expectations.
"The mo’akhar has turned into a monster, some families ask for $200,000 or $100,000 to force men never to consider divorce," she said. “Strangely enough, Arab girls who were born and raised in the US attribute the same importance to these traditions." 
To evade the financial burden, many Arab men ask Backless Prom Dresses to introduce them to non-Arab Muslim women, she added. 
“A non-Arab woman would never talk about dowry and shabka. Americans are the best people, they are simple, they never make overblown demands,” she added. 
Playing with traditions