Finally about the wedding

A friend reminded me this week that I never did write about my wedding. Oops. So here's a [somewhat lengthy; sorry!] description.

The week leading up to my wedding, I went to the capital, Abuja (three hours away), twice to pick up travelers. On Monday, Heather and I picked up my dear friend Ruth, the one who'd flown all the way from Korea. On Thursday, David and I went together to pick up my good friend Charisa (from Iowa) on the evening flight and my aunt, uncle, and grandmother on the following morning flight. So we arrived back in Jos in time for lunch the day before the wedding, with the wedding cake we'd picked up in Abuja. Phew!

The two days before the wedding, our neighbour ladies all came together at our house to cook for the reception. They made hard donut cubes called cin-cin and fried the beef first. Then on Saturday morning they all came to cook the jallof rice. And every time they saw me – or David - they uttered a high-pitched nasal cry. (Drove us crazy!)

The night before the wedding, a missionary friend sent over two 8-qt. pots full of soup for my family. There was no rehearsal dinner, as there had been no rehearsal. The soup arrived around 6PM, but before we could sit down to eat, David brought over all of his relatives that had just arrived, including his mother. I hadn't met his mother before but had been told how to behave toward her, so I got down on one knee to greet her and hug her. She doesn't speak any English, and I don't speak any Tiv, so all we could say was “Sannu” (the Hausa greeting). David's family didn't leave our house until almost 9PM, when we finally got to sit down and have dinner! After we ate, my aunt played the guitar for a short sing-along. Then my brother read to my immediate family from The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams. (It was a special request of mine, as we'd done it the night before my sister's wedding.) We finally all got to bed around 1AM.

The morning of the wedding arrived bright and sunny. I tried to sleep in, but with the neighbour ladies all coming to cook, it wasn't really possible. At 10AM, the bridesmaids, my aunt, and I piled into a LandCruiser (borrowed from our officiant) to take us out to the wedding site, about 40 minutes away. (David and my grandmother got to ride in a Mercedes!) When we arrived, we were greeted by lots of missionary ladies who were helping with decorations. (I'd had no idea!) My friend Kelly (a missionary nurse from Texas), and her assistant Priscilla (an MK from New Zealand) sat down us girls and did our hair and make-up. Then we all got dressed. People kept coming in to ask me details about the ceremony – things I'd thought I'd already made clear. At 1PM, we were almost ready to go to the chapel. But Kelly arrived to tell us that the groom's mother hadn't arrived yet. (The wedding was supposed to start at 1PM.)

So we waited. David sent a message saying that we should start anyway, that his mother didn't need to be there. But that went against all my American upbringing, so we waited. Finally, at just before 2PM, Kelly came to announce that Mrs. Nege had arrived. Finally!

The ceremony was lovely. My aunt played some music beforehand, which I never heard. For the bridesmaids, she played the theme song from Star Trek Voyager. When I marched in with Daddy, my friend Ted (accompanied on the piano by his mom) played “Prince of Denmark's March” by Jeremiah Clark. It was beautiful. Dr. Danny McCain (Uncle Danny) officiated in the ceremony, and his homily made everyone laugh and cry. My sister sang one of my favourite songs, “Only Hope” from the movie A Walk to Remember, and towards the end, my sister, brother, and I sang a song together called “One Voice.” We exchanged rings (the ring boxes had gotten mixed up, and David put on my engagement ring rather than my wedding band! So I just turned it around for the photos.) And then we were married!

The photo shoot was a nightmare. I don't want to talk about it. Noseeums everywhere.

The reception was almost as bad! After the photos, some Tiv ladies took me back to the bride house to put on a Tiv outfit. I lost it. I just bawled while they were pinning my headtie on. (Good thing the formal photos were over!) I was just so stressed out, and David was waiting for me, not having any idea what was going on. Finally, I was ready to go. David and I moved to the reception site – a grassy area just outside the chapel – and were seated under a canopy. A few minutes after we sat, someone came to us and informed us that we had to switch seats so that I was on David's left. Ridiculous! So we very obtrusively stood up and switched seats. There was a little bit of a program that seemed to go on much longer than we'd wanted. Oh, and the guests were all seated in five or six rows of chairs facing us instead of in clusters as we'd wanted. We hated that. After the welcome and intro of family, we cut the cake (which was really hard because the frosting was crusty; it had to be in order for it to travel from Abuja to Jos!) and fed each other tiny bites. (I'd asked for forks; no forks.) After that, one of David's relatives formally dressed us in Tiv attire (not knowing ahead of time that some ladies would already have dressed me in Tiv garb!). Then, finally, after a brief few words, we took a few wishful looks at the food we were leaving, and zipped away before anyone could stop us. Uncle Danny's driver took us in their LandCruiser to the honeymoon, and...

So that's the story of my wedding! Pretty crazy and chaotic. But it was nice, and all the guests said they had a really good time, so I won't complain. After all, I'm married to the world's most wonderful man, and that's what matters.