They say that every young girl’s dream is to one day have a wedding to beat all others.
Well, given the lofty standards set by the ostentatious society weddings that have become the rave in major Kenyan cities these days, such wishful thinking is turning into a pipe dream for many an aspiring bride.
Just take a leisurely drive in and around Nairobi on any given Saturday morning. Come rain or shine, everywhere you turn, you’ll be accosted by wedding processions with the latest sports utility vehicles and top-of-the-range stretch limousines.
Adorned from tail to bonnet with to-die-for floral arrangements, these glittering jewels of the City in the Sun are more often than not preceded by truly impressive vintage cars of the variety that need special levers to crank up.
Once on a roll, these classic contraptions from eras gone by become an absolute spectacle as they gingerly convey well-heeled Cinderella’s to venues of nuptial ceremony from which all the stops have been pulled.
It is not unusual these days for the beaming groom and his entourage to drop into such venues from an aptly bedecked helicopter, to the gawking consternation of folk not accustomed to such a spectacle.
Apart from chopper rental firms, the other beneficiaries of such occasions are Nairobi’s bustling florists, catering firms and the now ubiquitous wedding-management consultants, who have been laughing all the way to the bank as weddings grow into a mega industry.
Once the fastidious church ceremonies are over, the happy couples are ready for long, drawn-out photo shoots, first with all the relatives from the village, then with the comely members of the wedding entourage. These shoots, guaranteed to leave green-eyed unhitched spectators with a serious attack of the blues, are as dramatic as the preceding and consequent items on the programme.
Real action
Top among them is the reception, where the real action begins, at least for the ordinary folk from the village. Only the finest fare is acceptable at society gatherings worth their names, where guests can gorge themselves silly.
The sumptuous fare, usually laid out by leading five-star hotels that leave nothing to chance, is guaranteed to leave the most discerning connoisseurs of fine dining nodding with sated appreciation.
After the showy cake-cutting ceremony, the awed rural folk happily gnaw at generous portions ceremoniously hewed off the multistoried wedding cake, the tiers of which become a crucial pointer to the status of the newlyweds. As they do so, they’re sprayed with vintage champagne that they enthusiastically lick off their bodies as a record of their brush with affluence.
Budgetary constraints aside, a huge wedding is a must. Keeping up with the blistering pace set by the true Kenyan glitterati is difficult, though, and so the less-monied have to make do with what is made available by beaming entrepreneurs cashing in on the craze.
These come in the form of small-time catering firms that provide plastic flowers, chairs and tables, tightly arranged inside sagging marquees at nondescript wedding villages where any number of receptions might be taking place at the same time.
As for the limousines, ancient older models are available for a modest fee. They may be shorter and rather ramshackle, but for those with limited budgets, they’re guaranteed to create a semblance of keeping up with the big league.
And the indispensable champagne? No sweat. Cheap bottles of Mouscador can be procured at pocket-friendly cost from most supermarkets. Gracefully, they produce glorious sprays just like the real stuff and look great in the stacks of souvenir wedding videos.
During lower-budget weddings, utterly mystified relatives from the village, half blinded by flashbulbs, are routinely herded to the reception venue in hired minibuses decorated with banana branches and generous strands of brightly coloured fencing flowers.
Thoroughly exhausted, they often cannot locate the ceremony they’re to attend at the crowded makeshift wedding villages around the city. Little wonder, then, that it’s not unheard of for these famished folk to inadvertently but quite happily feast at receptions to which they have not been invited.
Then, of course, there is the matter of the honeymoon, the destination of which the starry-eyed couple has to announce publicly at some time or another for public-relations purposes.
Here, unnerving cash constraints again come into play and only in their dreams can the wannabes make a semblance of keeping up with the daunting standards set by their well-heeled cousins.
God help you, however, if the fictitious destination you broadcast doesn’t evoke the image of booze, sea, sand and sin on some all-year-round sunny island. Because, after all, a fairy-tale wedding is just that — the stuff of young girls’ dreams.
Ciugu Mwagiru is a freelance editor, writer and French-English translator based in Nairobi