When a prospective groom decides to ask for a woman's hand in marriage, a process of negotiation begins between the two families that involves the exchange of gifts, money, household visits, a religious or traditional ceremony in which the actual wedding takes place, and finally the arrival of the bride at the groom's household. These various steps could take place over the course of weeks or months.
The first wedding I attended in December was the union of a bride and groom who both reside in the United States. After the man's family asked for the woman's hand in marriage, the bride's family provided a list of items that they wanted for the brideprice. The list included: crates of drinks, bags of rice, various household items such as blankets and other linens, a pig (they are Christian), and a certain sum of money. The ceremony that I attended involved the arrival of the groom's representatives with all of the requested items.
Crates of drinks brought to the bride's family by the groom's family
After their arrival, the family negotiations took place in which the bride's family made a show of taking inventory of the items, and then formally "gave" the woman in marriage. The groom was not in attendance, and it was just by chance that the bride happened to be passing through Dakar and was able to attend the event. Since they are Catholic this ceremony will be followed by a religous ceremony in the US at some point, but as far as their families are concerned they are now officially married.
The second wedding event I attended was referred to as a "reception", and it took place in the early evening after a religous ceremony at the mosque in which the bride and groom were married by a Muslim officient. The bride wanted the groom to attend the reception, but as it turned out he was too busy attending to the guests at his house, so he sent his younger brother to represent him.
The reception was in many ways like an American bridal shower. The guests (over 400 of them) were about 90% female, and the main event was a long receiving line in which each guest offered a wedding present to the bride and was then photographed with her. Nonetheless, the happy couple did a slow dance to a Celine Dion song, which was also captured on video and by the photographer. Too bad the bride had to do her wedding slow dance with her brother in law.
The third event was in the village this weekend and it was the event called "seysi" when the bride leaves her family home and joins her husband's household. The religous ceremony at the mosque took place a few weeks ago, but this was the main wedding event, a wedding reception and seysi rolled into one.
A delegation transported the bride from Dakar to the village late Friday night (they arrived at about 4am on Saturday). Saturday's events involved lunch for 400+ people (they cooked 200 kilos of rice), an afternoon meal at around 6pm, a band of drummers and dancers escorting the bride to her husband's house with stops along the way at other important family members' houses, and the presention of wedding presents by the bride's peers.
The bride receiving prayers from the groom's mother's brother.
While the under 30 crowd was busy dancing to Senegalese pop music under one tent, the 30+ crowd was under another tent where various friends and relatives were exchanging money and toasts to various family members who had contributed to the event. Although the groom had orchestrated the day's events to welcome his bride, in many ways there were bit players in a much larger social drama.
The village wedding was definitely the most exciting, not only because so many different parts of the process of getting married were happening in a condensed period of time, but also because I was close enough to the groom's family to have a behind the scenes view of the fun, stress, and chaos of organizing a huge event for hundreds of people.
Things came off largely without any hitches, and I couldn't help but be a little sorry that I wasn't welcomed into my conjugal home to the sound of singing, clapping, drumming and my in-laws dancing circles around me. Perhaps we can arrange for some drummers to inaugurate our new home after we buy a house in Woostah this summer?
