Today I attended my very first African wedding! It made me very glad the wedding I will be a part of in May is an American wedding. They’re much more expedient.
I’ll take this opportunity to fill you in on some cultural East African stuff that may (or may not) help you understand why weddings are so different. First off, Americans with a western mindset are time oriented. When you plan a time to meet, you mean that precise time. If worship starts at 10 AM, the song leader starts worship at 10 AM. When you get a wedding invitation in the states, you know precisely what time the ceremony will start (and you wouldn’t dare be late to a wedding). Africans approach time quite differently. They are more event-oriented than time-oriented. If worship starts at 10 AM, you can show up at 11, or 12…or a little later than that. As long as you were at church for part of the service, even just the tail end, it still counts as “going to church.” Things don’t necessarily start at the time previously agreed upon; it starts when everyone gets there. Part of this is due to the unreliable transport available here. Very few individuals are wealthy enough to own their own car. Most people depend on catching a boda or piki, or walking. The other reason to wait until people are there is that…well, if no one’s here, no one is ready to get started! It’s quite simple!
Today’s wedding was scheduled to start at 10 AM. But no one was actually there when it started. In fact, the groom didn’t get there until about 1 PM. We stayed home until we got a text at noon from our friend who was the wedding photographer. She told us the groom was on his way and the bride was about 15 minutes away, so we safely beat both the groom and bride to the church. When we pulled up to the church, we were still one of the first people there and were able to select some excellent seats from which to watch the proceedings. As we sat and waited for things to get started, we attempted to carry on a conversation while shouting over the music blaring through the church’s sound system. That’s another difference between African weddings and American ones: they’re extremely loud.
While waiting for the groom to arrive, the minister of the Mbale Church of Christ got up and made his first speech of the day (I lost count of how many he made in all), and then encouraged someone in the congregation to lead us in praise songs. One of the ladies of the congregation, Jennifer, started leading us in “This Is the Day That the Lord Has Made.” We were doing just fine singing unaccompanied; however, in keeping with the African Loud Wedding theme, the man running the sound turned on a drum beat using the church’s keyboard…the tempo he selected was about 40 beats per minute faster than what we were singing. We kept our original rhythm for awhile, completely at odds with the drum beat, until the guy turned on the keyboard and started playing some pre-recorded loop of music in a completely random key. It was absolute musical chaos! Jennifer was leading a call-and-answer song, and struggled to shout above the drum beat and random keyboard piece. The congregation was shouting back to Jennifer over the keyboard blasting away through the sound system, and the guy in charge of sound was totally oblivious to the fact that the key we were singing and the key of the keyboard were completely at odds! But everyone was having a great time! One of the team members (a music major) made us all laugh by commenting we should all pray for the power to go out! Eventually we started a new song that more or less fit the key of whatever was coming out of the sound system, and everyone had a great time clapping their hands and dancing around until the bride and groom finally arrived.
The groom was escorted in by a mob of people, which I think was comprised of church and family members. I took a short video of this part of the ceremony. Everyone was just so happy! The music was blaring, and people were free to clap and dance and ululate to their heart’s content! It was much more animated than any wedding ceremony I’ve attended state-side. The groom and his family were seated, more speeches were made, and eventually the bride arrived. It took her about 15 minutes to actually make it from her vehicle to the front of the church building, mostly because she and her party had to perform a special “bridal walk,” which can be described as walking as slowly and as rhythmically as possible. She was beautiful in a white gown with a long train that was constantly being adjusted and straightened out by her very attentive bridal attendant. Once she finally made it to the front of the church, everyone was seated for another round of speeches, and then the minister delivered a short sermon and proceeded with the vows. It took them a while to get out of the church building, and everyone went over the reception area for more speeches.
I left before the actual reception was finished. Here’s a timeline of how the wedding went:
10 AM: “start”
12 PM: Most mzungu arrive, some Africans already present
1 PM: Groom arrives
2 PM: Bride arrives
2:30 PM: Ceremony starts
3:00 PM: Vows completed, ceremony ends
4:00 PM: Bride and groom arrive at reception for more speeches
4:30 PM: Cutting of the cake
5:00 PM: Elise sneaks out because they’re still doing more speeches and gift giving, and she’s getting hungry.
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