Helen works in the Finance department and today she married Frank. This morning I heard that several of the team were going to the church service so, at the last minute, I decided to go too.
We were all to meet at the office at 12.00 noon in order to give ourselves time to get through the Kampala traffic to the church for the service, which was due to start at 1.00p.m. As with all good plans in Africa things didn't quite work out as originally intended - one person didn't arrive until nearly 12.30 p.m., the traffic was gridlocked in places and we realised we didn't know exactly where the church was. When we were in the general vicinity and after having gone round in a circle once we called someone to ask for directions. Modern technology is a wonderful thing and the person on the other end of the phone logged on to Google maps and directed us to where we needed to be.
It was gone one o'clock when we eventually arrived but we were still 'on time' as there was another wedding taking place inside the church and our bride was sitting patiently at the back along with her father and the bridesmaids. Apparently there are not many churches in the city that are licensed to perform the civil part of the marriage service and so it is not uncommon to have four or five weddings in a church on the same day. It did feel a little like a conveyor belt as one wedding finished and we were allowed to file into the church to take our places in preparation for Helen and Frank's ceremony.
It was a very simple service: very similar in format to a church wedding in the UK and with the same vows and commitments. The biggest difference was that each milestone in the service was greeted with enthusiastic clapping from the congregation and after the signing of the register we were all invited up to the front to greet the newly weds and to bring our monetary gifts. I don't know if this was a collection for the church or the happy couple but I went along with the crowd, as you so often do in these circumstances... The whole service was accompanied by music blasted from a PA system, which seemed to be entertaining a nearby kid's club. In the UK someone would have gone to ask them to turn the music down, whereas here no-one really seemed to notice...
The service lasted about an hour and at the end there were noticeably more people in the church then there had been at the beginning. I don't know if they were late-comers for this wedding or early arrivals for the next one - the next bride was already sitting waiting so it was probably a combination of both.
There was no shortage of photographers at the wedding. I counted at least five people who all had the air of being the 'official' photographer as they took pictures from every angle, not wanting to miss a moment of this special day. I managed to capture two shots before the battery on my camera died that will remind me of the day:
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| Frank and Helen. Now husband and wife. |
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| The bridesmaid's shoes. Ugandan women love their shoes! |