A Weekend Wedding

This past weekend I attended my first wedding in Cameroon. The son of a neighbor was getting married. We have been waiting for the date of the wedding for a while (the date continued to change every couple of weeks). So it finally happened.

Things started bright and early Friday morning with the doting ceremony. You could kind of consider this the exchanging of vowels in a church – it’s what ‘seals the deal’. The man basically gives his bride offering. Next there was lots of cooking for the women. Peeling potatoes with dull knives, plucking chicken feathers, cooking over a wood fire – fun stuff. Later in the evening there was some celebrating at the mother of the groom’s house (where also all the cooking had taken place). We ate food, listened to music, some dancing. Then about 8, all the women loaded into cars to go ‘take the bride’ and bring her back to her house (you could kind of say the equivalent of a bridal suite except she never really left it and stays there for a week).

The next day started again with more cooking which this time I actually helped with a little, kind of, by cutting potatoes. But I had to leave to pick up my outfit for the rest of the event. We had ‘team fabric’ – matching fabric for the party. Then about 5, there was another small event involving the groom. Dancing, music, shouting, throwing of money, painting his hands – all of this was involved. After a short break to rest up some, there was another brief ceremony involving the groom that took place in the ‘bridal suite’ house. I think it was a story or a blessing or something (it was all in the local language so I pretty only understood the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’). Then the real event- the evening party. It of course followed African time – starting almost 3 hours. There was a ton of food and drinks and music however no dancing (rather odd). The groom was there again but still no bride. This time there was at least bride stand-in – her younger sister. Everything wrapped upabout 1am and although all the events were finished, we still hadn’t even seen the bride. So the next day, westopped by to see her and take some pictures. Altogether a very fun and tiring weekend but I don’t know if I’d want to have a similar wedding – the bride not attending a single event – quite the opposite of how things are in America.

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Reception

Stand-in Bride and her bridesmaids (+ us of course)