Adventures With Mark

Yes, me in a fancy suit for a Ugandan wedding. I never thought I would see the day in Uganda when I would be upfront standing beside some very dressed up gentlemen in a church. It was an honor to stand up for Ivan as he married his sweetheart, Sarah (not my Sarah, but another Sarah). What a great day and lot of fun.

I will admit that there were many things that were very similar to a wedding back in North America, but it did seem like things were bigger and had a little bit more of a beat to them. There were seven of us groomsmen, yes a fairly big wedding by western standards but more of an average size for Uganda.

The wedding was huge as there were more than 500 people at the reception and wow was it impressive. We came marching in down a hillside to the bottom where there was a swimming pool with bridges on either side. We made our way across and sat at extravagantly decorated tables encircling the pool. The program was very similar, but the most noticeable difference in my opinion was the wedding cake. It was huge and I do mean huge… Usually in a Ugandan wedding the cake consists of several cakes as the groom and brides families and employers would all receive there own cake to take home. The remaining cake was cut up and distributed to everyone. This was the biggest I’d ever seen!

A second part is that towards the end the wedding party leaves and returns in more casual dress as least the ladies do. Well, not a problem, but everyone comes dancing in and yes it was a long dance as we covered a lot of ground. I was thankful that my too left feet were a little bit hidden as I was in the middle of the pack. However, my white skin did stick out a bit, but luckily there were three other westerners and I do believe one of them had even worse left feet than me. Yes, it is possible…

All in all it was a great day and a very special moment for me to stand up for Ivan and experience a Ugandan wedding. I was very happy for them both.

On a side note since we are talking about weddings a huge congratulations to a good buddy back home who tied the knot this past weekend. Dave Sundlie you know I wanted to be there for the big day, but all the best to you and Sue!