At ten I picked my own bridesmaid dress – a beautiful white twelve layered, sequined bodice white number complete with puffy sleeves and hundreds white felt hearts. Luckily it was an Italian wedding and the bride upstaged me by at least a dozen layers of taffeta and several cans of hair spray. At 18, to the day in fact, I possibly caused the unemployment of a poor Indian waiter who tried to serve me cranberry juice and found himself at eye level with my chest and unable to hold on to his tray of drinks. I moved on from the cranberry and stuck to the finest French champagne followed up by fluro green tequila served in test tube holders.
So when the pink ribboned invitations arrived, complete with a request for contributions, I was pretty confident that this wedding would come no closer to the ones I’ve read about in Cosmo.
The bride to be was the Kesho Leo checkechea (preschool) teacher and despite being married for several years according to Massai tradition, it was time to appease the church.
Hannah, FWS education manager was given the privilege of bridesmaid duties – of which it turned out there were none – but still, not something to be taken lightly when it requires several meters of hot pink and black silk.
Not wanting to stand out more than absolutely necessary us ladies also chose the tailor-made kitenge (local material) route. Clare was fondly referred to as the tablecloth as she made the most of bright pink and green flowers. Sarah managed to pull of the mzungo dressed in traditional African patterns beautifully, whereas I chose the most symmetrical blue pattern available and stayed true to my deeply imbedded fear of not matching.
Hannah’s outfit, on the other hand, entertained us for most of the week. While the colour scheme changes with the fashion each year, the freedom to experiment with as many varations of dress design seems to be a well-developed tradition. Friends are invited to join the wedding party but other than being told what colour and when to turn up there seemed to be little in the way of stereotypical bridezilla behaviour. What came out, for this mzungo anyway, was a fantastic collection of frills, bows, silk flowers and waistbands that used every possible combination of pink, white and black and looked remarkably like neopolitan icecream.
A morning spent frantically running late and forgoing the usual wedding preparations of painted toenails and blow-dried hair was completely in vain – as we stupidly didn’t anticipate. At half an hour late we were the first guests – even the bride was sitting patiently in a hire car decked out in pink streamers. And yet, with less that a dozen guests and at least as many bridesmaids the ceremony began.
The church sits atop a sparse hill not far from home. With a corrugated iron roof, cement walls and simple alter, suddenly the fanfare of shiny pinkness and sparkles gave way to a ceremony that brought together the Catholic tradition I remembered so well – most notably endless standing up then sitting down – with the Tanzanian culture that’s becoming equally as familiar.
The bride and groom entered together with two friends as witnesses. The bride wore white with just a splash of hot pink – and so did the groom.
Guests continued to arrive right up the end and by the time they said ‘ndio’ (yes), the church was full. Luckily that meant that the toungue shaking calls you immediately associate with an episode of The world around us, silenced out the 1990’s electronic Casio that complemented every ‘praise the lord’ with an automated drum beat.
A good hour of standing outside the church clapping as the bridesmaids danced in circles around the happy couple was followed by a procession back into town. We had prime convoy pozzie right behind the ute carrying the ‘brass love band’. Fortunately, being mzungo and not accustomed to extended periods of horn honking, we were offered a reprieve for the 4 hours between ceremony and reception. So while we sat down to well-earned chipsi and beer at the local, the rest of the party went on to complete the customary and very noisy laps of downtown Arusha.
The reception was a very well organised affair that managed to seat, entertain and feed over 300 guests without any sense of the usual drama. The MC, as enthusiastic a host you might only find on the 1970’s set of the Price is Right, did a wonderful job of fostering the excitement and yet maintaining the strict order of ceremony. His introduction was even complete with a ‘and let’s hear it from the groom’s family’ – at which point at least a quarter of the crowd stood and clapped – and on it went. The highlight, surprisingly, wasn’t the gift giving – where we were required to dance our gift up the happy couple through the centre stage/ dance floor. Nor was it the logistical brilliance of feeing the entire congregation within half an hour – with no tables and cutlery from one serving bench and three waiters – without a single fistfight. And although the cake was three tiered and looked very similar to a scale model of an ancient Greek temple, it was all out-done by the goat cake. There once was a goat whose head and tail were removed. It was then roasted, skewered with mini carrots and reassembled with tin foil to resume it’s original standing . It was then finished off with some grass in the mouth and tomatoes in the eyes for the full effect. For the vegetarians reading this – I almost joined you. It was only when the goat was carved and distributed amongst the parents of the bride and groom that the traumatised animal was wheeled out back, head bobbing as it hit cracks in the floor. Definitely not a trend Modern Bride will adopt anytime soon.
So whilst there may not have been any fluro tequila or twelve layered taffeta, there’s no doubt this particular wedding did a fair job of raising the stakes for both originality and culinary creativity.
p.s sorry about the delay in posts - have been a busy Charity Worker. Look out over the next week or so for some more updates. Missing you all
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