The Wedding Crushers

I attended the wedding of the season this Friday. Bridgerton-Uganda edition. Empty your bladder, grab the poison of your choice, and find the cold side of your pillow.

While referring to it as the wedding of the season, notice I’m not using qualifiers like “arguably” because the competition didn’t stand a chance. Well, the competition also didn’t opt into this competition but I don’t make the rules. Wait, did I make these rules?

Where was I?

Yes – I attended the wedding of the season this Friday. Because I married well.

The wedding promised to be the social event of the year. The profile of the couple’s families layered over the couple’s box office good looks was a social sandwich made in heaven.

The wedding was on a Friday.

Earlier in the week, I told my friend I had a wedding on Friday. I lobbed the fact into the conversation, angling for surprise and he replied, underwhelmed: “It’s December in Uganda. I shot a wedding on Wednesday.”

This kind of enjoyment one-upmanship is as Ugandan as Sam went to London. You know how college students during exams, and other miserable people engage in the suffering Olympics?

“I slept at 4 AM last night. I have a splitting headache.” one college student enlightens another. The other college student responds with a counter-punch: “At least you slept. I haven’t slept in 5 days trying to study, and I also found out my entire family was killed when a hurricane caused by a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon wiped out my village.” The trade of miseries continues until both students submit their assignments late.

That’s the suffering Olympics. Ugandans do the same thing, but with who lost the most sleep while partying.

Where was I? Yes – the nuptials.

A Friday wedding meant pigeon-holing several work responsibilities to make time for enjoyment. Procrastination seems to be an acceptable currency in December.

My wife and I wanted to attend both the church service and the reception to properly honor our invitations. Also, it’s good manners.

The Church service was at 10 AM at Kampala’s most picturesque brick-walled cathedral that hasn’t been fundraising for renovations as long as I’ve been alive. The cathedral is 20 minutes away on a good day and 30-45 minutes away on a December Friday in Uganda.

But I had to get a haircut first.

My wife didn’t like it but the hair loss I inherited from my mum’s lineage compels me to cut my hair weekly to avoid looking like a wet village chicken.

My alarm clock, er, son, went off later than usual at 7:50 AM and for the first time, I was disappointed. This meant I was officially running late for church.

I got my haircut at around 8:40 AM and by the time I returned home with fresh Friday morning traffic battle scars, my wife had left. She didn’t want to be late and I respected that.

I slithered into the brick-walled worship house at 10:45 AM, via a side entrance. I tiptoed to my pew like a teenager sneaking into their parent’s house after a night of discovering who they are. But of course, the patented Ugandan tardiness vindicated me. As I occupied the pew alone on the east end of the cathedral, I watched the beautiful bride glide in donning a shimmering white gown with her brother on her arm as a jingle from a violin measured their steps.

I made like an owl and swiveled my head many times in search of my wife but I couldn’t see her. I’d wait for offertory to reunite my family.

The service was longer than most and the reverend’s sermon planted a flag pole on the mountain of wives submitting to their husbands. But our awe made us forgiving.

The service ended at 12-something and the reception was at 4 PM.

But I had to go to the gym first.

My wife didn’t like it but I don’t maintain this suit size on prayers and manifestation alone. Metals must be lifted and sweat must be broken. I hit the gym at 2:30 PM knowing damn well I’d be running late again, but the urgency wasn’t as great. The earlier you get to a wedding reception, the longer you have to wait before the food comes.

I returned from the gym at 3.40 PM and this time my wife was still there. Phew! Another arrival in separate cars and aunties would ring me with biblical concern.

We inserted our car into the centipede of cars on the way to the reception and arrived in good time—Ugandan tardiness on our side again.

The reception was in a large outdoor tent by the water. The tent was the size of two and a half basketball courts slapped together for a tournament. The ceilings were partly see-through, revealing a tasteful amount of skylight. The decor was extravagant but understated. The faux greenery fashioned an enchanted forest you wanted to get lost in. The kind with a vegan wolf that gives proper directions. Shiny chandeliers and bulbs shone amid the greenery, creating a well-lit outdoor castle in the makeshift forest.

The food was decent. Enough for sustenance but not spectacle. I was famished though, so my plate might’ve indicated the food was divine.

The speeches were well-timed and laden with accents sharpened by colonizer influence. I suppose all the Ugandan-born, bred and schooled were denied the microphones. I understand. Your relatives will embarrass you.

As a perfect interlude to the half-London speeches, the groom’s parents performed a duet that left nay a filled seat under the tent. As one of the speakers said: “The groom came from good stock.”

The groom delivered the highlight speech of the evening. Not shy about declaring his love for his people—indicating his well-loved upbringing—the groom eloquently showered love on his support system before serenading his wife with a terse but tantalizing tune:

“Isn’t she lovely? Isn’t she wonderful?” He sang rhetorically, reassuring the audience that he had plenty of avenues to sustain his family if his day job of being rich didn’t work out.

T’was a beautiful evening to celebrate love. As the rain battered the tent, and the skylight was no longer illuminating spots on the dancefloor, the defiant crowd waded the water that puddled the dancefloor. I saw ladies cooperating with that classic ladies’ room camaraderie to wring each other’s dress tails, reinforce them with shoe-lace knots, and persist on the dancefloor.

I covered my shivering wife with my jacket and went off to mingle, 2-step, and pretend to know the words to all the 90s and 2000s RnB ballads.

“Just in case, I don’t make it home tonight…” I belted out Jaheim’s hit song about seizing the day while pointing in my wife’s direction disingenuously. I would be going home a few minutes after that.

At around midnight, we called in the tip we gave a waitress earlier and got hotel-branded umbrellas to cover our scamper to our car.

As I reflect on the wedding and all the pleasantries and declarations of love exchanged, I remember this quote:

Love is the easiest thing in the world when it happens by accident. But it doesn’t get real til you do it on purpose.

Have a blessed week. Make good friends, marry well, and live in the moment .