Traditional and 'Western' African Weddings

Traditional and 'Western' African Weddings

Sadly, many of our respondents feel that traditional African weddings are becoming less popular amid an influx of the so-called ‘White Western’ African weddings. Yet marriage is still a special celebration of the’ natural continuity of life’ in every part of Africa, with the bride being treated with maximum respect because she is a link between the ancestors and the anticipated unborn children that will result from the marriage. Although wedding styles and traditions may change, a bride might bear a very powerful and strong child, which is so important for Africans, and, in some parts of East and South Africa, the grooms’ family may move to the brides’ village to help the new bride to be happy and to create a healthy family.

Marriage amongst the Ewe of Togo

There are three types of marriage in Togo. The civil, the Christian, and the traditional. Chiefs are sanctioned to perform traditional marriages, which are legally binding. The Christian wedding is not legally binding in or of itself. Couples often perform all three types of marriage. Amongst the Ewe of Togo, most ceremonies take place in the groom’s home. The bride arrives with female relatives bearing cloth as a gift, and then the celebrations begin with dancing, music and food.

Anani Fiado (Joe), Ewe, Togo, on the difference between marriage here and in his country:

“Because marriage is not like here. Because a marriage is different issue altogether. So, it have process. Because everything have to be in the court or the priest have to set the date. But there is the family. Want to make sure everything is going to be…yeah, the ceremony, the family, if everything come ok…the family will meet and the man will bring what they want. The list they ask…”bring drinks”. It’s like in the bible. How Solomon do it. Ehm, how Abraham do it… They will bring traditional drink. We have traditional drink, that is called palm wine. It’s very sweet. But I bet you cannot finish this cup (laughs). We have pito with wheat. It’s also very powerful. And you drink it in the calabash. All the two, you drink them in the calabash. And they will give the woman a small one in the calabash to go and find her husband. Sit down with the man. The parents of the woman will give the drink. For the woman to go and give her husband. And she give the husband a drink. Then the husband will hold her hand. It is very beautiful. Yeah is very beautiful.”

Marriage amongst the Akan of the Ivory Coast

When a date for the wedding is set, the groom sends palm wine to the bride’s house and then brings her to his family home where he provides her with the food for the feast. There is invariably an elaborate traditional wedding where clothes from different groups of people in the Ivory Coast are worn by the bride throughout the day. There will also often be a religious or civil wedding.

Lydie Bere Flere Dossa, Akan, Ivory Coast, on weddings in her native culture:

“Before to do the white wedding, you need to do the African wedding first, because is the one is the most important first, you know. Even in the register office in our country is recognise that the African wedding is recognised as the wedding. So you need to do this one… In my tribe, like in my tribe, you come, they gonna say “Okay your wife is coming but you need to pay a fee again.” Is just to bring the, the comedy on, you know, to bring the party on. So they gonna ask you “Oh, give me ten pounds, I need to buy petrol to my car to go pick up your wife to bring here.”

Lydie Bere, on acting as a stand-in mum at a Cameroonian man’s wedding:

“Because the boy’s mum, the boy from Cameroon…his mum pass away. I was sitting as his mum.”

Blandine Damsk, Bafoussam, Cameroon,

“According to tradition and elders, if you choose to marry and only have the legal ceremony, you are not recognised as being married, you have to have a traditional wedding to be recognised as being married. Before a traditional wedding, the ‘fiancée’ will come with his family to introduce himself to his prospective in-laws. This is called ‘knock door’. At this time a ‘bride price’ is agreed and this could be anything from a goat or sheep to money. He is given a list of items that the family (including grandparents, etc.) require, and he has to agree to provide all the items on the list… 

The family of the bride will cook lots of food and it is a big celebration. When people start arriving, they brought lots food and wine with them too. The guests will also bring a suitcase for the bride and this will contain clothes, shoes, make-up, handbags blankets and money, then throughout the evening the ladies will open the suitcase and help themselves to the items in the case…

Then comes the celebration time, the girl will be hiding somewhere. The girl won’t be there to welcome them, it’s the family, as the girl is hiding somewhere. Then the Dad will say, “Okay, you see visitors here, they say that they came for somebody. I don’t know who they are here for, could you tell us?” Before that they will give the visitors drink, just to welcome them.
“Yeah, tell us why you are here.”
“Well we came here because we saw a ripe mango here.”
“A mango? Okay, can you please go and get a mango?”
They say, “Oh no, we’re not talking about this, we’re talking about a beautiful lady here and our heart is beating, we cannot leave without her.”
“Oh, I know what you mean, no, so which one of them do you mean? I’ve got many girls here?” Even if he’s only got one daughter, he’s got many girls there.
You should never give the name because if you give the name it’s not being polite, so you say, “She’s beautiful, with bright eyes.” "

Blandine then explained that one girl would be brought out covered from head to foot with only the tip of her shoes showing. The groom then has to say if this is the girl he wishes to marry. Then another girl is brought out and he has to say if this is the right girl. Eventually, the bride is brought out, and the groom knows this is his ‘bride’ because, before the wedding, the bride has told him what shoes she will be wearing on her feet to make sure he guesses the right one. The Dad asks the girl if she’s sure she wants to marry and when she says “Yes”, he takes a drink from a glass of wine, gives it to his daughter and then to her husband. Then he takes a bite from a kola nut, gives it to his daughter, then the husband. Their traditional ‘ring’ is the kola and the wine. The marriage has now taken place.

Lydie Bere, on making a marriage work in the Ivory Coast:

“In Ivory Coast, if there is no communication, it’s not like you’re a slave, to do what he say to do, no, no, no, you have your say with him. But whatever you want to discuss, you discuss it both of you, and you agree and you do it.”

Lydie Bere, on making a marriage work in Glasgow:

“Even here in Scotland, most of the family who are living together as husband and wife here…they always listen to their husband. Some of them are stubborn. That does not listen. It bring a lot of arguing, quarrelling in the family. And divorce at the end because there’s no mutual consent. And some time it’s small, small thing, but there’s no mutual consent on it and it will just destroy you. But here, most of them are trying to follow it. Most of them are trying to follow it. One way, sometime, eh, family can jump in to try to resolve it. The woman can go and speak to the woman or the man can speak to the man, or the man can speak to the woman, woman can speak to the man of this family – “No, try to calm down. Let it go, listen to your wife.” Eh, “This one, she got good point, you need to listen to her as well. You know, she have a say on it but, you are still the head of the family but this one she is right so just look on it and you will see.

Lule Nassar, Baganda, Uganda, on marriages in his culture:

“That one it depends, in Africa, it’s not like here, it depends. Some people, they have money, they can stay there for a week playing drums and drinking. Because they have money. So, the people who don’t have money, they don’t put on any ceremony at all. They just marry each other. And there are two married…you can go to church or the head of the village. They can give you your wife… Some people they do traditional and they go to church. Those are the people who have money.”

Marriage amongst the Bamiléké of Cameroon

Traditionally, parents would find marriage partners based on the reputation of a prospective marriage partner and their family. Marriage is very much about the coming together of two families. New clothes are given to the bride as a sign that she is off the market. The community often blesses the wedding.

Jean Albert Nietcho, Bamiléké, Cameroon, on marriage in his culture:

“The wedding ceremony is so amazing. You should have a look at one video of this kind of thing. It is fun. It’s just like a comedy. Because before…they will just make a way...because the family, we just try to make performance. So, you the bride, you the man. You can give more money, more money, more money… For example, because you are saying that, they will just try to…they will bring quite a lot of girls. They will ask you “Which one your wife.” They will ask you to choose which one between them. Or they will cover the face, cover the face and ask you to choose. If you choose the wrong one (laughs) that mean you are going to pay more (laughs). That mean “You want our girl, you don’t even know who she is!” That’s kind of just like a comedy. They just do that all over the night before they say, they will say “Ah, you have to pay for flight to go and get, or you have to pay for taxi to go and get.” And people will come and sing with you. Sing in front of you. Sing all sort of the thing. The man’s family. The man’s side… The special thing as well, in my wife, my wife family, what they do, is, eh, shopping in the morning. What they do, everyone in the village, they going to bring vegetables, yam, food to sell at the end, before you go. There will be potato, you have to...but all the village do that kind of thing. Will come and do the business. Will come with the potato and thing. The man family they will buy it and sometimes they overprice it.”

Jean Albert Nietcho, on whether people marry in Glasgow or go back to Cameroon to marry:

“Sometimes people will go and do the traditional marriage back home. It’s something that Home Office acknowledge as well. So, if you have your wife, even by doing the traditional marriage, if you can prove…if you can prove that. I’m talking the same with me, my wife. We get the civil marriage here when I applied for visa, but I have to prove that we are together. That it is my wife because of these traditionals. See, you have the picture. You have to prove that traditional marriage. And have to bring the photo, that’s what I did, to give some confidence, to Home Office that…also because, my wife, we get married here. But the traditional one we did that back home… I am actually attending here…if you have a big family here. Just like me, if I become and stay here for that long…for very, very, long time. My son, or if I get a daughter…get married. I can do it here. But sometime, it is good to do it back home because there will be that extending family. This uncle and auntie, they are very, very important when you get married.”

Younis Odum, Ghana, on marriage in her culture:

“The white wedding is almost always certainly on a Saturday. Always…I’m not sure if there is a particular reason for it but it’s almost always on a Saturday. Occasionally I’ve seen people who do the white wedding and the engagement on the same day. So, they start the traditional really, really early, and then they break off and go to the church and do the white ceremony, just put everything on the one day. But they try not to space it out too much. So, once you are engaged or once you go through the traditional, they almost expect you to be married within a month.

Younis Odum, on a wedding she attended in Glasgow between a man from Ghana and a woman from Zimbabwe:

“I think it was, the girl…they basically had similar outfits, so it was all navy blue and the guy had…it was like sewn for him and so was hers…and basically, it took me by surprise because I’ve never witnessed a Zimbabwean wedding or tradition before. But basically, the woman’s mother was sat on the floor beside her daughter to give glory to her daughter, yeah, and the woman who was getting married was on her knees to wash her future husband’s hands, and she was on her knees and washed everyone else in the house’s hands as a sign of respect, which I had never seen before. I felt bad for her because she was literally walking on her knees to go take the bowl to the next person.”

Aya Rashid, Nigeria, on weddings in his culture:

“It could last up to three days. That is after months or probably years of preparation. But the ceremony itself. The first day, you do, eh, an informal introduction. That is when your family meets our immediate family. Then when it comes to the marriage proper. Three days to the marriage proper you do the introduction. That is a societal introduction. Ok, bring whoever you’ve got. I bring whoever I’ve got. Let them meet and let them meet together. Ok, this is our child going to your family. What have you got? They put differences aside because two people are coming to an innocent world and it’s big. The following day they apply the western ideology. Some of us go to the court for register wedding, some of us go to the church for church wedding, some of us go to the mosque. But the third day is the big one, that’s the celebration. You come with everything you’ve got. You come with your girls and gears, everything you’ve got. And you dance your heart out.”

Muslim weddings in Gambia

The marriage can take place whilst the couple are absent and it is often only men who attend the mosque. The dowry is paid at the wedding, which is usually a small or nominal amount set by the bride’s family. Kola nuts are also present. Prayers are made.

Serign Sanneh, Mandinka, Gambia, on the difference between a Mandinka wedding and one and a Western one:

“It’s much different to the Western way of getting married. It’s basically like the honeymoon… When I was getting married, I was here and my wife was still in Gambia, so, because we didn’t need to be there, so it’s the elders that do everything and then my wife joined me here. So, and that’s still the way it is.”

Grace Manika, Malawi, on marriage in her culture:

“Oh, if two people like each other and they want to get married, they get married… You marry in church or you marry in the Registry Office.”

John Unis, Freetown, Sierra Leone, on the differences between the traditional and the Western wedding in his culture:

“In the wedding of my elder sister, that being like the culture is still there in Africa, because we make all arrangements within the traditional way of a wedding, which was more fantastic on that day compared to, we call them, ‘the Western version,’ which we appreciate as a traditional. People living and show people that we can still do a wedding with traditional costumes, so at least one hundred percent of the people all around the area all admire all that we have done more than the Western wedding.”

Rohey Conteh, Mandinka, Gambia, on weddings in Glasgow:

“Yeah, it can be similar. They do try a lot. It’s just sometimes a little bit different because of the environment. Like, in Gambia, you have outside. People will cook outside, sort of like in the garden. So, yeah, the environment’s a little bit different because most of the things…they do cooking inside of the house and then they take it to the hall and they play the music and people will come over. Uhm, whilst in Gambia, if you have your own compound, or your own house, you have everything in there. You don’t need to take a hall. Your friends and family will come and meet you there. And the cooking will be in the house.”

Pa Ebou Ngum, Wollof, Gambia, on weddings in his culture:

“When they are married, there are a special day when she is handed to the husband and that day, the night they are, the night she is handed to her husband, the most important time is the morning. They will put them in a room and wait for the morning. That’s the time when the mother will not sleep because he has to prove that her daughter is a virgin before she is given to the husband. So, in the morning the proof will be the bed sheets and that night the bed sheets will be white, so when the morning comes and they saw the bed sheets, they will straight away know, yeah, she was, and then they start beating the drums… In the Muslim religion you are allowed to marry up to four wives. It’s nearly compulsory. If you can do it, and doing it, that’s the hardest part. Coz to treat everybody…you have to treat everybody the same.”

Kaddi Jatu Jobe, Mandinka, Gambia, on weddings in her culture:

“You do the traditional marriage first and then you set a date to do like the wedding. It’s up to you whether you want a white wedding or you want like a kind of mixed white and traditional wedding, then the husband’s people will get, like, clothes, shoes, bags, fragrances and different, different stuff for ladies, and put in a suitcase and everyone will contribute whatever they can contribute, and then they will take it to you, to the bride’s family… Some will wear white, some will wear violet, some will go baby pink. Depends, actually, depends on the taste… It’s usually three days. So, you have the actual wedding, and then you have…so, that night, that’s when the kinda…They perform this traditional kind of bath on you. And then you wear like white clothes. And you have like kind of beads on your head as well. And uhm, dunno, how that thing is called…so, there’s this kind of, hmm, it’s kind of like pumpkin but it’s not, it’s like the hard bit. So, they just cut in the middle and take up the seeds, and you hold it in your hand. And then they will take you to the husband’s house. So, in the morning they will come and get you, and they will do drumming and that kind of thing. So, after that then the husband will…actually, the husband’s family, will get you like a gift. That’s another celebration. But, at the end of the day. That’s the end of the wedding. After three days.”

Kaddi Jatu Jobe, Mandinka, Gambia, on weddings in Glasgow:

“Yeah, yeah, like back home, yeah, yeah. The only thing I’ve not seen is the traditional at the end of the wedding ceremony, in the evening. I’ve never seen that here just yet… But I’ve seen it in London. I’ve not seen it here, but I’ve…cause I’ve not been here so long. So, maybe they do. Maybe, I’m not sure…”

Mariarose Ngosi, Lilongwe, Malawi, on weddings in her culture:

“Typical marriage ceremony, what they will do is…one, they will go to the church, to start with, if they believe in church. So once from church, they will go to the houses first. Where the bride and everyone are gathered for food. Then they will eat…the bride and groom they will eat. And after that they will go to the hall. If they have, like, eh, after celebration, which everybody else will gather there. So, on my…on our side, we have like a master of ceremony which, eh, make sure put everything in order. So, the bride and the groom will sit at the high table, plus his best males and the best girls for the bridesmaids and the bridegrooms. So they will sit. I would say the whole bridal party will sit on one side. So, once it’s done, like that…the master of ceremony bringing people one by one. And we put money. You can bring the gift but you also have to carry money (laughs). So, on the ceremony they can call to say the man’s side. And then they’ll put the music and you go and you put money. So, there’s lots of things…like on the female side you also do the same. Then they will bring other people, the uncles. There will be speeches and stuff. But eh, before you do all that…you can’t make a speech without putting money on… Ah, the food is…typically, when you go to the… because we have, like, two different food. If it’s in Malawi, after the church, you go to the house where you eat. They will cook like a nsima [porridge] which is like ugali, sadza from the maize meal. So, they will have that. They will have some nice. Ah, normally we don’t go to the butcher. Ninety per cent we will get the cow, live cow, which they will kill for the event. Or, goat or lamb, whatever they have. The chickens…they will have that. So, that will be like the people from all over, because the wedding is big… If you have a big family. So, I can easily have three thousand people, yeah, so, through that, every family brings their own. So, if it’s my side, say we meet here [The African Arts Centre, Ibrox, Glasgow], this all for my woman’s side. They will have another house for the man’s side. So, from that side they will be cooking things like that, and when the brides are coming, they will eat. After they eat, then they will go to the hall, so in the hall, it’s completely different type of food. It’s just nibbles and eh, like drink… Normally it’s white dress. Normal white wedding dress and the normal suit. But, eh, from the family, sometimes. Sometime during the wedding time…they can pick a colour. African colour. So, everybody will be in the same colour with the different design.”

Mariarose Ngosi, Lilongwe, Malawi, on weddings in Glasgow:

“Oh yes, my cousin got married here. I would say fifty percent was similar to back home. The culture is still the same. For the money wise, we are still putting the money. And what we do here, now, because in Malawi, we give money on the wedding. Because Malawi wedding, when you go to the wedding, you have to carry money. But, because pound is big (laughs) you can’t put, eh…you can’t have one pound because it’s only the coins. Only you can start with five pounds and five pounds is big. So, what we do is we change to dollars. So, you can have one dollar, one dollar, one dollar… Yes, so we put the dollars in the…during the wedding…so, yeah, when you go to dance, you put money. So, we still have that culture. But, when it comes to food, we don’t go to any…once we from the church or from the registration, we go straight to the hall… We have the bigger food, yeah, it’s easy to get the food. So, we have…so many people does African food now. But it’s easy, yeah… But most of the time, nowadays, people can chip in to help. So, like, ehm, I would say “I will cook rice.” Someone will say “I will cook chicken.” Someone will say “I will cook fish.” Or, if you have money, you will have someone to cook for the whole wedding.”