Last Saturday was a stressful day for me because I had to travel 3 hours from my town to the city of Ibadan for this wedding. I was not just a guest; I was also the baker for the event. It was a sister's wedding, someone I met while serving in the NDLEA CDs group. She was our coordinator, and I was one of the executives and served as a secretary. She treated us like her younger ones, and being a secretary made me closer to her since I had to report to her. We've kept in touch since then, and in March, she asked me to make her wedding cake. I was happy and agreed on the design and price.
The journey was not easy, especially carrying the cake on a public bus, but thank God it arrived in one piece. When I got to the venue, the hall was already decorated, though it was smaller than I expected. It could barely contain 60 people, and I wondered if they were expecting just family members. They had set up two tents outside for overflow guests. I had to use plastic tables with cloths to make the cake display beautiful.
The program was supposed to start at 11 am, but it began at 12:30 pm. They planned to do the traditional wedding and reception together. The woman anchoring the engagement started with a prayer and then invited the groom's family to dance inside, followed by the bride's family. The groom was called to dance and later prostrate before the bride's family to beg for their daughter's hand in marriage. The caterers were serving food while the ceremony was ongoing, and everyone was eating before the bride was even called inside. It was already past 2 pm by then.
One of the funniest moments was when the singer of the day got angry, claiming the time for the engagement should be over and he wanted to take over, thereby using the speaker to disturb the engagement program. I couldn't even laugh, it was just funny, the bride had to intervene and bribe the singer. I was sitting at the front and saw everything, even the singer was saying it inside the microphone that the bride has bribed him and his backup and instrumentalist should keep everything low. It's just so funny to me because how can you be doing that on someone's big day because of your selfish interest? Just because of the money people will spray them and also because of the money the engager will collect from the family.
I left when the reception was about to start because I had to travel back. By that time, many people had already eaten and left since it was almost 4 pm. Overall, the wedding was okay, but they didn't keep to time, and the conflict between the singer and the engagement team wasn't pleasant. I pray God blesses their marriage forever and give them a happy home. And I pray theirs will be among the best in Jesus name.