A Kenyan wedding

Last weekend, Josh and I attended the wedding of one of his staff members.  I've seen pictures of the Kenyan wedding ceremony but never had attended one before.  We were running late that morning so decided to instead just show up for the reception.  Little did we know that Kenyan time would take on its full meeting in this day.

We arrived at the church at 3:30 in the afternoon to be quickly shown to seats in the front row.  As it seemed the ceremony had just begun.  Three little girls and two boys slowly made their way down the aisle throwing confetti at every step.  I whispered to Josh, "I think this is the actual ceremony."  "No," he said, "They are just coming in for the reception."  As more and more individuals made their way down the aisle, I kept insisting that we had actually arrived to the wedding even though it was supposed to start 3 hours ago.  I claimed it was Kenyan time at its best!

Besides the late start, Kenyan weddings are not much different than American.  My only grief is the "marching" down the aisle.  To be in a Kenyan wedding is a great honor and ALL involved take their time enjoying being on parade.  The first set of children took about 15 minutes to make it down the short aisle and each person after that came slower and slower.  It seems that as you become more important in the wedding party you also get more time going down the aisle.  Now you think this would be come boring or even a little awkward for the individual marching or the audience, but alas not here.  Other Kenyans jumped out of their seats and ran into the aisle to take pictures.  Definitely no rules here!!

After an hour and a half of painstaking marching and hearing the same song over and over, the wedding party had finally made their way into the church.  What followed was a heart filled praise of the Lord.  The preacher welcomed everyone making a special note to single out Josh (we were the only non-Kenyans there) and conduct the ceremony in English for our benefit. 

After the vows were done everyone quickly ran outside and yes I mean ran!  Food and cake awaited us.  Again Josh and I were seated in the front row and quickly offered cake and soda.  We stayed for the gifts and a few of the speeches but made our exit as the speakers became more and more long winded. 

Overall it was a nice taste of the Kenyan culture.  It was great to go support Josh's staff and I think he was very honored that we came.  I'm not sure its what I would want for my wedding ceremony some day but it was interesting to get a look at what its like here.