Kenyan Wedding

On December 6, I was in my first Kenyan wedding. Delfrey and Lydia got married. Delfrey asked me to be a groomsman. He had 8 groomsmen and she had like 10-12 bridesmaids. The thing with Kenyan weddings and even dating is that you keep things quiet until the dowry is paid. You don’t really date like we do in the States. It’s more of a progression in life. So with the dowry, the groom brings family and friends to pay for the bride. The groom is not allowed to speak, so he must choose a person to speak on his behalf. The same goes for the bride’s side. So all the negotiating is done through other people. The dowry can consist of many different things; like crates of soda, new clothes, animals, and money. Once it is paid, the bride and groom can now officially plan the wedding. They form committees in the church to help plan. The thing with the committees is that the people on the committee are expected to give money to help pay for the wedding. This committee was about 30 people and each were expected to pay 2,000/= Shillings (about $25 each, giving $750 total). Since I was in the wedding, I also had to pay for the 3-piece suit (1,500/= Shillings). Once planning is started, the announcements can be made regarding the wedding. Also we must announce that they are getting married about one month before the wedding, just in case if one of them is already married. Strange, but I guess that law came out of people getting married and then leaving their spouse and remarrying.

So on wedding day, I got my suit that morning, so there was no time to get things altered. But I was in the same boat as all the other groomsmen. At about 10am, we go to get the bride. All the bridesmaids come and they sing traditional songs at her house and then bring her to the church. It should go smoothly, but not today. The mother left the house and we could not get the bride without the parent’s blessing. I had to pick up the mother with another guy from church so that we could get things moving. Come to find out, the mom didn’t want her to marry or wanted more dowry, so that is why she purposefully left the house … to stall. Once we finally got back to the church, we were 2 hours late starting the wedding. The wedding was kind of like a normal church service with the wedding ceremony at the end.

I was a little traumatized with this experience and it would stick with me through the next few weeks. The worst part about it all was the lack of timeliness. I felt like my time was not appreciated and they could take the entire day for something that should have taken a few hours.