Ah, Shammah(groom) and Ketuah(bride) looking just adorable. Everyone loves a good story love story, right? This lovely couple met at seminary, and though Ketuah had received advice not to bother getting involved until after she was done with her studies, she couldn't resist Shammah's charming smile and eloquent recitation of Bible verses:)
Now, Shammah's work was far from over. In this culture, the dude does 95% of the preparation for a wedding. You have the whole dowry thing to work out and that alone requires several visits to the potential inlaws, bringing along various members of your family each time. You also have to buy this assortment of "house-warming" gifts for your bride including things like toiletries, luggage, shoes, and material for outfits to be made out of. Then you have to plan the whole wedding from the music, colors and cake, down to transportation for the inlaws if they live in a different area. In the States, you're likely to find a bride-to-be sitting with friends doing "wedding talk" for months. I thought I would escape this in coming to Nigeria but nope! The first real talk I had with Shammah was about his wedding and for the past 6 months I've been privy to him and Akim (my other colleague) having "wedding talk" in the office.
Every photographer at a wedding has to get a shot of the cake...so here ya go. Pretty good, I'll say. In many ways, Nigerian weddings have all the same elements of weddings we're all used to. Ridiculously insane mornings, beautiful brides, processional, prayer, vows, rings, sermonette, recessional, picture time that takes way too long, delaying the beginning of the reception, tons of guests you don't know, music and dancing. Oh, but there are distinct differences that kept me chuckling throughout the day.
OK, for starters...this picture was taken about an hour into the ceremony. I didn't take one at the beginning of the ceremony b/c the place was nearly empty. MOST of the time, weddings start over 2 hours late in order to wait for the church to fill up. Shammah, however, committed to starting on time no matter what. Consequently, Ketuah was not walked down the aisle by her own father because her own family hadn't arrived yet! "Who gives this woman to be married to this man?" "Good morning. My name is Ishaku Yakob and on behalf of the family, I know that Ketuah's dad would want her to be given to this man." No joke, that's basically what he said! The family all rolled in about 15 minutes later. I was pretty sure the pastor read his opening Bible passage EXTRA slowly. Plus, you can't tell from the indoor picture, but this church was still under construction. No one in the US would get married at a church with scaffolding all on the outside. Of course, you probably wouldn't start without the bride's parents either.
Another fun feature is that groups of people will often buy the same material and get matching outfits made for the wedding. My department opted to do this so we looked WAY cool at the wedding. Along the lines of attire, weddings also offer a great chance to wear an extra big head-tie. The bigger the better. And even though it was pretty darn warm and humid (check the sweat glow on my face), we still had plenty of dancing at the reception. Not a big dance floor where only the young or intoxicated come out, but the emcee would call the bride and groom and other random sets of people forward to dance, at which time people would boogie up to the front and throw money at them to pay tribute. "Spraying" as I've said before. I wasn't ALWAYS sure when I could go up, but b/c I was the only white girl, they encouraged me each time. The band would thrown down a beat and I had to move my feet, know what I mean? I didn't get a good video of me dancing this time, but here's a little pic.
Speaking of taking pictures...one slightly annoying but perhaps useful practice of Nigerians is not to smile for pictures. Your average american bride/groom will have sore cheeks from smiling so much...but not here. I had to poke and chide Shammah to show his aware-winning smile in some pictures. Here's a classic with the two sets of parents. Notice how NO ONE looks happy. Depressing if you ask me.
What WASN'T ironically depressing was the rain at the end of the day. If you recall, it's been dry season here...meaning it hasn't rained for 5 months!! Not a drop. Thus, when some dark clouds started to roll in, the wedding party wasn't bummed out, they were elated! Ok, so maybe the people who had to hop motorbikes to get home were a bit disgruntled, but I was thrilled! Kind of like the first snow fall of a season...here I am catching rain drops in my mouth.
Even though I ended up loading/unloading the rental furniture and then the band's music equipment in the rain (only person with a truck... I should have seen it coming), hearing the beating of rain on the hood, smelling the wet pavement, and seeing the dust washed away TOTALLY made my day. Even when I returned home to no power, I took completely joy in opening all the windows and doors, laying on the couch and savoring the storm. Rain on the wedding day? Just fine for me:)
Hausa word of the day: wedding celebration = bikin aure
1 comment:
C'mon, who doesn't know My Fair Lady?? ;)
I loved reading about the wedding experience over there! She was beautiful bride!
I think you're pretty great, Nae. =)
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