Going to the chapel and we’re gonna get married!!!

So…sometimes when you are in Africa, and some friends of yours get married, you get the privilege of being the wedding singers…and the wedding dancers…and the servers at the reception, lol.
Last Saturday, Sam and Dorine, the cutest African couple ever, got married. Somehow, and I don’t really know how, but somehow, our team got recruited to present a few songs during the ceremony. We chose to do a medley of some rather cheesy, but more importantly, really amusing, love songs. We began our medley with “I Say a Little Prayer for you” from the major motion picture My Best Friends Wedding. Then we transitioned into, “L…is for the way you look at me! O…is for the only one I see…” Finally, to finish our musical extravaganza, we chose the song “Going to the Chapel”.
Once the songs were in place, we began to practice. Somewhere in the middle of our practicing, what started as a simple song medley quickly became a very Glee-esque song and dance number complete with choreography that included some serious step touching moves. I realize that all of this would have been a bit obnoxious and slightly inappropriate to perform during an American wedding ceremony, but when in Africa, it was a showstopper and people loved it.
From there we went to the reception, and what is a reception if there is no dancing?? And what is dancing if it’s not a choreographed dance number performed by a group of entertaining missionaries?? The song was called “Work it Out” by Shyland. It is a Christian rap about the importance of Biblical womanhood, hahahaha. So we got our dance on and everyone at the wedding loved it. They loved it so much in fact that we have been asked to perform another dance at a wedding coming up on April 28^th. Now, I am sure that all of you have two questions you are dying to ask. 1) Is there video footage of all this craziness?? And the answer is yes! However, you have to wait for a bit because the internet here is super slow, so uploading a video would take ages, but it will be here…eventually! 2) Are we available to perform at your wedding, birthday party, or any other event that needs some epic entertainment??? And again, the answer is yes! No monetary payment is necessary, however, we do accept donations in the form of food : )
From there, we were recruited to serve out the food in the buffet line at the reception. This would normally not be a problem, but there are some things you need to understand about African weddings.
First, like many other activities in Africa, weddings do not start on time. For instance, Sam and Dorine’s wedding was supposed to start at 11am. However, it did not actually start until 1pm. Problem number two is that the weddings are about 3-4 hours long, so for those of you doing the math, that is now about 5 hours without food, and people have missed lunch, so their getting hungry. Problem number three is that directly from the wedding, you go to the reception. At the reception, the couple has to receive their gifts, and then present their gifts to people that helped them during their wedding.
Then the speeches are made, and everyone that had any involvement whatsoever with the wedding and/or in the couple’s life, makes a speech. So at this point it’s about 6pm and you’re looking at about an hour, at least, of speeches. Problem number four is that Africans invite the whole town to their weddings. They announce it in church and it becomes a community affair. As if that doesn’t draw a big enough crowd, people passing by on the street see a reception and know that it means free food, so they pop in and sit down.
So there I am, at about 7pm now, serving an amazingly long line of very tired, very hungry reception guests. So needless to say, we ran out of food and I got scolded, a lot, by a lot of people because I was not giving them enough food. Thankfully, most of them weren’t yelling at me in English, so I pretended they were saying nice things to me, even though they clearly were not.
Despite the stressful food serving incident, I loved the day and I am so excited for my team to be the wedding singers/dancers/servers at the next wedding! Thanks for reading! I love and miss you all and that is okay because I will be back on American soil in 3 weeks. Crazy!
 
Peace and Blessings!
Sarah : )