Hi friends, once again i wish you a happy new year, its indeed a great and amazing experience that God blessed me with an amazing new year gift, This happens to be one of my happiest days, it was a day i had long expected, am so happy that it finally came to be, i have never felt love like this day.
I feel so honored to have my friends and love once travel from various location within my nation just to honor me, many around me, abandoned their different engagements just to make my day successful, i really do not take for granted at all, i would have love to mention names but that would not be necessary.
Indeed the Ibibio traditional marriage culture is an amazing one, let me journey with you down the line as i share with you a few highlight of the event and the beautiful moment.
The traditional marriage takes place after you have paid the ladies dairy and have been given consent by the parent to proceed with the marriage, it is actually the ceremony but before now all the marriage right have been settled as agreed by the brides family.
Udia Ibenghe:
My Mc. did a great job already before we were brought to the very scene of the event, according to the Ibibio culture, the groom parent and family will be welcomed first, at their arrival to the venue of the event, the family of the bride will give them a warm welcome, direct them into a special hall for special meal, known as udia ibenghe, the special delicacies called in our dialed Udia Ibenghe means meals to prepare your mind, by implication it means that the bride is good to go.
The meals contain all Ibibio traditional delicacies, this is to show that the bride has been trained by the parent and is capable of preparing all this kind of delicacies.
This is the very important item of the event, someone from the brides family will introduces all the meals while others will be there to serve. The Grooms family will individually choose from the assorted delicacies and will be served.
At this same time while the grooms family our enjoying the udia ibenghe, other guest that came for the marriage ceremony will be served at the different location were they are seated.
The next phase
After the meals, the Master of Ceremony officially invite to the head table, the governor of the feast and other members of the head table, then ask the band to give a song that will usher in the grooms family to their seat, as well a special song is raised to also usher in the brides parent to their special seat. the brides parent beautifully danced in, after which the master of ceremony ask the spokes person from the grooms family why He is still waiting after they have eaten, In his response he said that their son saw a beautiful lady and have come to take her hand in marriage.
Bring in the couple
At this point the groom is brought to the public first, with a special traditional music, as part of the element of the event, the master of ceremony will conduct a test to certify the grooms readiness for the business, after that, the Bride will also be brought to the public, the bride will publicly take her husband to be to her parent with a bottle of wine, giving their parent to drink and bless the marriage, the parent will take the drink, and bless the union.
The groom also will take the bride and do same to his parent, as soon as that is done, the Master of event will call on the both parent to come handover the bride to the groom for the joining to be done.
the picture above shows my parent to witness the official handing over of the bride to the groom, i am innocently in between them.
Here also is the brides parent coming to handover officially, that is my beautiful angel in between them. the picture below here shows how and when the brides parent picked her by the hand, and hand her over to me.
the man on white is my Governor of the feast, He declared us man and wife, while the other person gave a word of prayers for us as my pastor. all the clergy men and women were called to joined in the prayer, as you can see in the next picture.
the next picture is the photograph of us and my parent, followed by the brides parent and the both families.
After the official pronouncement, the band gave some cool music, while the public had no option than to view our dance steps, our friends, siblings and love once came to dance with us, you can see the joy and excitement on the faces
Our friends who came around, decided to take some photograph with us and the day ended in praise
The day indeed was colorful, This is the part one, i will be back with the conclusion part of the event, the wedding, glad to announce that my wife have been on boarded to the hive community, in a few days from now she will be making her first post. please feel free to welcome us to the marriage club if you have been there, Thanks so much for having me, i will be back soon for the part two, stay tune.