After writing this
ARTICLE for
Wedding Trendy the other day, I was inspired to take out a few minutes to imagine what my wedding day would actually be like. I decided that I would try to keep it as real as possible and not dream up one of those made up fairy tale things.
This is what I came up with.
It’ll probably start off with me waking up with a headache, because I stayed up late the previous night gisting with my friends, whom I hadn’t seen in forever. We all knew when the clock struck 12am that we should have gone to bed at that very moment, however, that was when my friend *Janet remembered that she hadn’t yet told us about how she had nabbed her now ex-boyfriend red-handed with his side chick. The gist was at its sweetest point and we just couldn’t resist. An hour later and we finally went off to bed.
Now, it is five hours later and I’ve had to be woken up to have a bath because the hairdresser will soon be around. Drat and double drat. My eyes feel like sand paper and I look forward to seating down and having a nap while the stylist does his thing. No such luck, soon all my friends are awake. Someone slots in an Adele CD and I leave my chair to join them at intervals as they sashay across the make shift dance floor in my room, much to the endless frustration of my Efe, my hair stylist.
Finally, he is done, and now it is the makeup artists’ turn. I manage to annoy her as well, as I have now danced myself into a frenzy and I am sweating a bit across my forehead. This means she finds it impossible to apply my primer and brown powder and she gently bullies me into sitting still in front of the standing fan. While at the same time, having her assistant fan me vigorously with her copy of a magazine she was featured in recently.
Eventually, my face dries out and she can now begin her job. I take the magazine from her assistant, and begin to flip through it. This is when I realize that I am hungry, starving in fact. My mother, bless her heart is somewhere in the house fussing over the final details of my reception venue, and forgot to insist that I have a meal before starting my make-up. I sheepishly inform my make-up artist about my plight and suggest that I quickly grab a bite before she does my lipstick. I promise to be very careful and not mess up any of her work so far. I summon my younger cousin to make me two packets of Indomie Instant Noodles, she is the only one who knows exactly how I like it, with just the right amount of curry and pepper and an omelette on the side. She shows up with it fifteen minutes later and I proceed to gladly stuff my face, being cautious to avoid mistakenly rubbing the carefully applied blush on my cheeks.
The make- up is done, and my mother after reappearing decides that it is time for me to slip into my dress, seeing as the photographer just arrived and all and wants to take pictures of me in my attire. I oblige and she leaves. I immediately slip in my old Destiny’s Child CD and my friends and I happily dance around to two rounds of ‘Say my Name’ and one of ‘Survivor’ before we are caught, and I am ordered to get dressed instantly or else.
X amount of time later, and I am dressed and ready to play the role of ‘The Bride’. As I walk down the stairs, I quickly flip through my BlackBerry and see that I have a random message from my former Grad school classmate who now lives in Beijing. I haven’t heard from him in awhile and he has no idea that I am getting married today. When he asks me where I am and what I am doing. I respond that I am at a corn field in Argentina harvesting maize. He totally buys it and I am strangely pleased.
I get downstairs and begin to pose for the photographer, my friends join in and we insist on making funny faces much to my Grandma’s chagrin. She believes that weddings are no longer taken seriously these days. On her living room wall is an old black and white picture of her and my granddad on their wedding day. They both look very sober, almost like somebody died.
Pictures taken, we then realise that the church service is only half an hour away. We quickly set off for the church arriving there just in time.
I begin my walk down the aisle. I catch the eye of my groom at the altar and we both struggle not to giggle. It is difficult to keep a straight face as we say our vows. You see, we can clearly see the Best Man John, giving the eye to one of the bridesmaids and we are tickled by this. However, there is the serious matter of being attached to each other for life to be attended to, so we eventually take our eyes of the drama and focus on the present.
After all formalities have been done and papers signed, we leave the church and head straight for the reception venue to take official wedding photographs.
Then, it is time for the reception party. We walk in calmly after being announced by the MC. My husband simply refuses to dance as he has two left feet and I am secretly relieved even though I initially pretended to make a big fuss about it. I was simply trying to guilt him into buying me a new pair of shoes. Suffice to say that it worked. I now have a brand new pair of Red Brian Attwood sandals sitting comfortably on the floor of my closet.
The party is in full swing; half of the guests here never showed up at the ceremony but came straight to the reception instead. The MC takes the Microphone and all necessary jokes are told in between performances by various artistes (including Lara George) and dance troupes (Spirit of David?).
Hours later, I lean over and begin to whisper into my Grooms ear. A few of the guests sigh and assume we are whispering sweet nothings. However, in reality, the following conversation is taking place:
Me: “Guy, I’m hungry o. As in seriously hungry”
Groom: “Me too o. I’ve been trying to catch the eyes of our servers but none of them are looking our way. *Mary (my chief brides maid) is nowhere to be found and I think I saw *John slipping off with that bridesmaid a while ago.
We sigh.
Finally, I cannot take it anymore.
“All right. I’ve had enough” I declare
My Groom looks at me nervously; he recognizes my tone of voice and the determined set of my jaw all too well
“What do you want to do?” He asks.
I gather the hem of my dress and lean over “We are going to get something to eat. Leggo”
“Are you crazy?!” He says, we can’t just walk off the stage.
“Yes we can” I say, “take a look at these people, none of them are paying any attention to us, they are far more interested in the caterers and that ridiculous live band that is playing, the one your Dad insisted we get. Remind me to thank him profusely after wards”
With that, I stand up and head left off the stage with my new husband behind me. We find our way to the back of the caterer’s tent. I demand a plate of Pounded yam and Banga soup, and a serving of spicy chicken wings. Our food is hurriedly brought to us and we eagerly chow it down. Minutes later, we are suitably satisfied and the servers don’t know where to put their faces. I am quite certain they have never seen such a shameless display of hunger by a bride and groom before in their careers in the event planning industry. We shall likely be talked about for weeks, but we do not care. We are happy and satiated and decide to head back to our seats. Just then, I notice that there is a small palm oil stain from the soup I just voraciously consumed on my left shoulder. I am glad that we have taken all our official photographs, but I am slightly worried about what to do if an overzealous friend decides to clamber on stage and take some close ups on her mobile phone. I shrug and decide to cross that bridge if or when I got there.
Seconds later, we are seated. Ten minutes pass by and we realize that we are bored out of our skulls and long to disappear. But alas, we cannot. We are the ‘bride and groom’, the ‘stars’ of the day, and we simply cannot take off like we have done in the past after being served at a wedding and realising that there was really nothing else to do.
We decide to count the number of girls in ill-fitting dresses, then men with ugly shoes on, then the number of times my Aunt *Carol snitched extra souvenirs from the people serving them. Finally, we were done, we’d run out of things to count but still, the wedding was not yet officially over and so we had to stay put.
Finally, another hour passes, and most of the guests have left. We thankfully leave our seats and clamber into our vehicles while blowing kisses to our respective parents, family members and close friends who are still around as we drive off. We are exhausted. It’s already night fall, and we still need to change, pick up my luggage and head off to the hotel closer to the airport where we will be spending the night, Seeing as we have a morning flight to (insert appropriately cool destination) for our honeymoon.
I get to my room and begin to wheel out my suitcase, and then I remember that I am supposed to feel nostalgic about this moment. I am tired, and can barely muster up enough emotions to be excited, even about the fact that I will never have to see Ahmed, my neighbours weird Security Man again. You see, I will no longer be making nightly trips to the shop down the street to buy Top -up credit for my mobile phone at night, so I have no need to bump into his obnoxious flashlight wielding self. After a few seconds, I have had enough and I proceed down the stairs to the front door where my husband helps me put my bags into the boot of the car. My mother is back from the reception venue despite my attempt to cleverly sneak off before her return, and with good reason too. She proceeds to annoyingly insist of taking pictures of me as in my last moments before I officially leave for my husband’s house (re: hotel room). I jump into the car as soon as I can and we are off.
We finally get to the hotel and check in. I jump into the shower while he makes arrangements for an early morning taxi pick up service to the airport. Fifteen minutes later, I fall into bed with my husband behind me soon after. It only takes a few seconds before we are sound asleep. Exhausted by my activities of the day, the honeymoon could wait. Sleep was calling, after all tomorrow was another day.
The END
Gotcha!
Do not be fooled, there shall surely be shenanigans.
THE END: For real this time
Disclaimer: This entire article is a joke and should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Cheers
I am thankful that I live close to a 24hour supermarket. How else would I be able to satisfy my late night cravings for crackers and cheese? Or not so freshly made croissants. If it were not for my access to late night snacks, I would not be the girl that I am today, one who is only slightly behind on her essays and project work. I would be the girl who is far, far behind, like as far behind as my classmate and friend who has a thing for turning up at lectures just at the end. It's really not his fault you see, he finds it practically impossible to get out of bed before 1pm. So yes, I am thankful for late night grocery shopping.
I am also very thankful for my flatmate who insists on making an absolute mess in the kitchen anytime he's done burning his meals. Really I am, how else would I have been able to make use of the large supply of cleaning products I bought at a whim? Why, they'd have all gone to waste without him there to constantly remind me to whip out the scouring liquid and what have yous if I had any hope of being able to prepare any kind of edible meals in the near future. Yes, I am thankful for you my friend from Asia and the large party of people you insist on entertaining regularly. Really, I am.
