Saturday, June 26, 2010

Today there was a wedding at the church. Bro. Keith performed the wedding and I was asked to video tape the wedding for the couple.

Weddings in Uganda last all day:

First there is an Introduction. This is where the couple goes to the Bride's home village and the couple are formally introduced as married. The groom also pays the dowry -- can be cows, chickens, goats, rabbits, clothing, money -- whatever the brides father/family asks for must be given to them by the groom. There is also a huge lunch.

After the introduction the couple is brought back to the church to be married. This can take some time depending on how far away the brides home village is. Also for this wedding they went through Masaka honking their car horns (something that they usually do after the wedding) so that people would know that they are married.

The wedding was scheduled to start at 3pm at the church, but it did not start until 6:30pm. (Mrs. Sally said that weddings never start on time; she also said that one has even started 4 hours late)

Here are some pictures (Because I was videotaping I gave my camera to one of the Stensaas' kids so some of the pictures are blurry):

The bride walked down the aisle by herself, but one of her family members went up the place her hand in the grooms hand (the groom is the one with the crutches) and in return the groom gave the family member a live chicken (this is done at every Ugandan wedding; the chicken then made clucking noises throughout the rest of the ceremony:

The Bridesmaids were four of the orphan girls:

Here they are about to light the unity candle and be pronounced as husband and wife. They also shocked every one because they kissed. Public displays of affection are rarely if ever done in Uganda -- Bro. Keith said that in all the weddings that he has done -- 14 since coming to Uganda, this was the first one in which the couple kissed.

After the wedding there was a reception. The couple cut their cake and then the groom was given a chair to sit in and the bride had to kneel at his feet to give him his bite of cake and drink of Mountain Dew. Then the rest of the cakes were cut and handed out to the people attending along with some kind of muffin and their choice of soda.

The wedding was pretty interesting and I am glad that I was able to attend!