Eliud's Wedding

Straight from survey to wedding! On Saturday 2nd May, I had the priviledge of attending the wedding of my colleague Eliud in Mwanza. Rachel and I had ordered special dresses to be made for the occasion, but true to African timing, only got them about 20 minutes before we left on Saturday morning, so I didn't have a chance to try it on before the event.

All was well, though, as the dresses fit wonderfully, and we joined our other wazungu colleagues outside the church just before 3pm, the official start time for the wedding. Some of us went to see the groom and found him waiting in a room with the bride, best man and maid of honour (the best man is called 'besti' here, but I don't know the word for the lady's role as the bride's helper), a very unusual thing for us who are used to the Western tradition of keeping the bride and groom apart until the wedding! In the end, we proved that we had all forgotten about Tanzanian/African timing, and had to wait around for an hour until the wedding began at 4pm.

I was told later, that this was a very Western wedding compared to others that the person had attended, but there were a few differences that I noticed. One was the dancing. The bridesmaids task seemed to be to dance everywhere in front of the bride, or the bride and groom. Likewise, the congregation was dancing quite often, sometimes with people dancing up to the front to where the newlyweds were standing. The choir was pretty boisterous too, and one guy really got into the dance mood, even coming right up to the end of the row where I was sitting and dancing there.

Another difference was the was the bride walked into the church. She walked very slowly, and for most of the ceremony, until she walked down the aisle with Eliud at the end, she looked almost sad. I guess that this is a traditional attitude to have, perhaps sadness at leaving her family home, then happiness at joining a new home on her marriage.

Most of the differences were during the reception. This began some 2 hours after the wedding finished, and had its own timetable. First was the entry of the guests, then later the bridal party. They stopped at a ribbon tied between two posts and cut it together (like an opening ceremony for a building!) before walking through. After that, there were 'traditional' events, like the cutting of the cake, and more strange to me, the introduction of all the guests, beginning with the groom and his side of the family, and then on to the bride's side, each person/group standing and waving as they were announced. Another fun event was when we all danced up in front of the bride and groom with our drinks in one line and bumped bottles (we had sodas/water/light beer for drinks) with the people coming the other way. Embarrassingly enough, I hadn't realised that this was the aim of the line of people dancing up to the bride and groom, so I hadn't brought my drink! Oh dear...

The final event of interest was similar to the introductions as the bride and groom stood to receive the gifts from friends and family, each gift being presented in order from groom's side to bride's side. This was slightly embarrassing also, as our joint gift of a bed and mattress for the couple was still being made at the fundi's in Musoma, and wouldn't exactly be presentable on a table anyway... so really it looked like a bunch of us gave nothing, but never mind, at least the bride and groom know that isn't true!

There weren't any real speeches a far as I could tell, but since I left after the food was served at 11pm, there may have been something else. As I went to sleep (we stayed at the same hotel where the reception was held, not the brightest idea!) I could hear the party continuing, though I still don't know whether they did party til 6am as it said on the schedule, or not...