A Ugandan Wedding 101

We have just hired a social worker here and he is engaged to be married in December.  We asked him to explain the marriage process here in Uganda.  Here goes. . .

A guy finds a woman he wants to marry, he then goes to the sister of the bride - to - be's father, her aunt.  This aunt is given gas and a cash gift discretely.  This is to "motivate" her to present the groom to the bride's parents.  She goes, talks, negotiates and finally the father of the bride concedes to meet the groom.

The groom goes to a formal meeting of the bride's parents and the entire clan/tribe.  The groom is not allowed to speak, he must take a representative (preferably an older man) to speak on his behalf.  The bride's family asks questions about the groom, his rep answers (so you better have a good rep).  There are also envelopes with money handed out strategically and discreetly to members of the family and clansmen.   The meeting ends and the groom returns home.

A few days later, he receives a letter from the brides parents agreeing or disagreeing with the marriage of their "baby girl".  If they agree, the groom returns, now able to speak to them personally and he negotiates a dowry.  In the case of this social worker, they told him to "just come as you are".  He had to take 40 women's dresses, 30 men's gowns (the father is Muslim), a leather couch, rice, sugar, a baby goat, and other odds and ends.  This was the dowry for his wife.

They also have to give a gift of money and gas to the brother of the bride and make him sign a paper stating that he received his gift.

Now, everyone is happy and the two love birds can FINALLY set a date for the wedding.  In this case, it will be in December 2012.  The social worker says he is already 50% married, just waiting on the actual church service for the other 50%.

He said that after doing all that work he will think twice about divorcing her!  He said that only love would motivate someone to go to all that trouble!!

Oh, yeah, the groom has to take the permission letter from the father of the bride and from the brother of the bride to the wedding in case someone tries to protest the marriage on the big day - it happens all the time!!  So, all you future grooms and brides in the U.S.A. that think wedding planning is hard, imagine doing it in Uganda!!

Here is photo from a wedding we attended back in 2009 here in Uganda.  It was at least 100 degrees that day.  The groom had a guy whose only job was to wipe the sweat off the groom's face every few minutes!!

The bride took about 1 hour to walk 50 yards!  Another wedding custom.

Richard Kowalske officiating.  Notice the white people behind him.  That is where we all sat, as guest of honor!