Any Day Is Wedding Day.

 Kenya's main crop of export has always been tea.There is alot of it available country wide, of good quality and the price has always been pocket friendly. Probably that is where the famous saying was coined "any time is tea time." I am a big fun of tea and I should understand that saying better. That said, wedding industry has become a serious industry that could borrow from the same saying. Why is that so? In the past, Nairobi Weddings were famously done on Saturdays for a majority, a few on Friday and Sunday mostly for the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) but there has been a complete switch.

What makes Any Day a Wedding Day? Well public holidays are great days to get married in Kenya. Wednesdays to Fridays are seeing more weddings being done here. It might have been the trend some where else but its finally caught up.


Why do Weddings on odd days? I once tried to find out from a few couples and one thing stood out from the response I got: to cut down on guests and have a small intimate wedding. Why not just do a card only wedding? Well, Kenya like most African countries, still have a communal feel when it comes to weddings and social events. One response that I found interesting is I invited you to mine/my brother's/sister's so you should reciprocate! The one response that I once got from a group of 3 women-If you can't invite me to your wedding then don't bother to tell me when you have a funeral!Wow some are overwhelming but should instilled guilt by your to-be or not to-be guests determine who comes to your wedding? Its a couple decision at the end of the day.

An interesting Scenario is He might come from a large family and his parents would like a chance to invite to Nairobi all the relatives from rural home, including the ones in the cities and that can be a crowd of 300 all together and He hasn't invited his friends neither has she invited her crowd. Bearing in mind the famous habit around for guests to invite their own friends to the wedding without the couple's consent. Its no wonder the crowd can easily grow to between 500 and 700 people attending a wedding.

Back to the earlier on discussed strategy some couples use. They employ what I considered earlier on when discussing on tea-any time is wedding time method. Last year a wedding reception I knew of started slightly after 8 pm and you had to drive in to get to the reception. The result?- A few people attended those who had cars and once who could car pool and the cost of the wedding reception was drastically reduced.


Two couples tried that method of far drive in reception but it failed on them. The reason being. The receptions were done during the day on a Friday and a few guests paid a few more shillings and the matatus drove them to the reception  and came back for them. So even though any time is wedding time to some. If you want an intimate wedding, communicate with your guests: make it a card only affair. You will upset a few but still get what you aimed for.

Here Comes The Bride -------------------------------

----------------------All dressed in

I thought I write on something that's essential to a wedding the bridal dress. Something quite essential to any wedding: formal, informal, traditional or even religious wedding. We carefully select an item of clothing before going to an event and the bride especially takes her time to select what she will wear for her special day.A lot is normally considered for it: size of the bride, figure, color length, traditional or modern designs.

Most dresses can either be bought or rented depending on the bridal shop. Purchasing Online dresses is especially cheaper than the local dresses sold in Bridal shops in Nairobi. Its important for the bride to have the right measurements before ordering. It lowers the total cost of the dress. When a dress has been identified, the bride can pay a visit to a designer or tailor to get their right measurement before placing an order. 2 to 3 weeks before the wedding, measurements could be adjusted with the right designer in case the dress is not a perfect fit. You can help the dress remain fitting by exercising. Keep fit and you will be in the right shape for the wedding.

You only have this one day for your wedding (hopefully), hence bought or sold the dress should fit and be the IT dress for the occasion. Accessorize well and the make up should help you look as natural as possible or as tasteful if bold. The right shoes go well with the dress too. Don't try high heels on your wedding if you have never done so before. It could spell out disaster for you considering you will be on your feet most of the day.




And when you get up and dress in the morning of the wedding, Keep the smile. Smile for the photos its your wedding day, and you should feel as good as you look the whole day. The cameras are on you, so go on enjoy being the day's celebrity.   

The singing Bird

If you live in Africa and especially rural Africa or uncrowded area, you can enjoy being woken up to the sound of the singing or humming bird. Their tunes are pleasant if you take time to listen to them. Birds have a rhythmic sound to them, but the sound normally last for a short while before they fly away. This brings to mind about wedding and music. Its nice to be entertained by music in a wedding and especially if its the kind of music that you like and can dance to. Different individuals have different tastes when it comes to music.

There are songs I would not have picked for any wedding but lately with choreographed wedding dances any song serves to entertain guests at weddings. Nairobi has a lot of songs that are not related by any means to weddings but many people have turned them to wedding songs and they are enjoyed and danced to by many especially a majority of them having being sang by local musicians. I have come to respect how well they blend to the weddings.

A hired band especially with a lead singer has a way of being a crowd puller as their music though not familiar to the crowd they have a way around it.There is another aspect though of the singing bird when:

1. A friend chooses to sing for your wedding or pays someone (can be the couple's favorite singer) to sing at your wedding
2. bride/groom decides to sing.

Well, the bride/groom singing is where my interest lies because most people who choose to sing at the wedding have a voice for it . But the bride or groom singing, do you have the voice for it? I love birds singing in the morning but the owl outside my window in the night/morning is another thing: terrible. Before you entertain your mate as a surprise its good to have someone realistically listen to you sing. An honest opinion may just be what you need to know whether you can be the singing bird at your wedding or the owl. Either way, its your wedding and keeping your guests entertained and comfortable is a decision only you can decide.


Hasslefree Clip Art

A Critical Look at Wedding Committees

Most weddings in Kenya are planned through committees. This may be a group of friends, family and workmates brought together to help plan the wedding. Even the group planning could have the roles assigned to follow up on vendors or even to be in charge of the vendors during the wedding. Most committees help to raise money for the wedding. Sometimes one can be in up to 3 committees a year which require not only raising the amount for the weddings but also money to be part of the bridal team and all expenses you require to met by you the individual.

Weddings are planned events. We plan to get married if we wish to do so. How do we make it easy for those who are assisting us to raise the cash. There are several things

Save, save and save. Its important for the couple to have saved some money on their own before involving others. A common scenario is where the couple want a wedding an average budget of Ksh. 500,000 or more and how much have they set aside? Well, they are waiting for the committee to help them raise the whole amount.Money isn't the only thing under consideration. The time too is important having weekly meeting for a span of 7 months and paying venues and drinks for meeting including goat eating and selling items to raise the amount? We can save on the time required to meet to be able to cover alot instead of weekly meetings. And in the end time is money.

Budget plans. I believe its important to have a budget and at the back of our mind how much we are willing to spend on the wedding. Failure of which if the amount was Ksh. 500,000/= it escalates to Ksh. 650,000/= and no one knows what happened or how they got there. Part of the budget should also include emergency amount. Working with a budget helps to adjust as necessary when an amount increases where to reduce or do away with all together. The wedding budget should also include honeymoon budget and its important to pay for your own rather than leave it to the committee to factor it into the amount they are raising.

Do something. Most people meet in a committee with nothing done. A better approach would be the couple identify vendors with their own savings, pay up deposits for everything or a majority of the things required so that the committee is spared the time to identify and bring quotations from 5 or so vendors to be approved on the basis of price or being known to a member. Most couple have been part of a previous committee so most vendors used are known to them whether they liked the services they offered to a friend or not. If they did they could take and keep the contact especially if they know they have a wedding coming up in a few months it saves them the time to visit a future event planned by the vendor. There is also a down side to this if a committee members wants to gift you something you have already done a down payment which could save you money that would be used elsewhere.


Be flexible. Money limits what we can get for the wedding. Just because the same committee raised 600k for someone else a few months ago they might not be in a position to raise even half of that amount for you because they have had a funeral committee to be part of, person commitments that they have had to pay for and if you didn't contribute much to the wedding of a friend they might just contribute the same amount to you which might not add much towards the budget.Or even those who pledge a large amount but due to personal disasters can only give a quarter or half of the promised amount. A lot of factors come into play when dealing with a committee but be flexible enough to adjust to the kind of wedding that you can afford considering the cash at hand against the wedding you believe you deserve.

Planning a Friend's wedding.......

September is proving to be a hot month in Nairobi so far a perfect weather for weddings here.Since I'm all about weddings so I'm more interested in what it takes to plan a friend's wedding. Its said that friends can help you launch your career and most people who start small rely on friends to get the word out there about their work and most of the time they are not so tough on how many clients you have handled like complete strangers are.

Planning a friend's wedding the Nairobi way. Let's explore a typical scenario....You have a friend whose wedding is coming up. By you I refer to vendors_florist,tent and decor supplier, DJ and music, photographer, video person, private venue hire, and they call you and not only say are interested in your services but most times would like to involve you in the committee that helps them raise money for their wedding so the question is: How do you join the committee and still make money for your business?





As a friend to the bride and groom if you have an established business and wouldn't hurt your business there are several ways to go about this you could:-

• Offer your services as a gift to the bride and groom and not charge them. That can get you out of the committee but still support the couple on their big day.
• Instead of contributing cash to the bride and groom you could give your services at really reduced prices which you wouldn't normally do so for other clients or would normally reject clients on such budgets.
• Another alternative would be to offer cash towards their wedding and your services at friendly rates but you have got to be at a comfortable place business wise to go this direction especially if you settle for a substancial amount to offer the couple for their wedding.

For a start up business not established I consider option 2 as a way to get your business out there. Even if its a friend's wedding its important to work out a contract because you are still running business  at the end of the day.It protects the couple also at the end of the day. Remember the planning started out as friend helping friend whether for free or paid at a reduced rate and at the end of the wedding, the still want to remain friends not foes.

Icing on the cake

There is one thing to be said about the wedding cake: there is got to be some form of icing to complete it. It never matters whether its glazes, butter, flat, foam, fondant,fudge, and royal icings. What's important is the cake is attractively finished to the preference of the couple.  In last week's blog we looked at wedding cakes and a bit about the icing which won't be part of this week's article but a reference to what I hoped to explore this week.

In my DON'T GET MARRIED WITHOUT IT article, I wrote on the fact that that the most important aspect to a wedding varies from a couple to the other  to which a variety of things can top the list with varied reasons as to why its considered to be so. If a cake is badly cooked, stale or for some reason not as tasty as expected by the couple or their guests, then no matter how attractively finished the cake is (good quality icing); it just won't  make much difference.

If the flowers are the icing on the cake, its important that they're beauty shows. In the arrangements selected by the couples. Budget weddings and extravagant weddings have one thing in common the wow factor can be achieved by the flowers and for this to happen, the minimalistic or Cinderella brides have to work with flowers well. The one thing about Kenya, our weather is favorable and a lot of flowers are available most year round at reasonable cost. These flowers include and are not limited to: carnations, calla lilies, mums, tiger lilies, rose flowers, and tulips. Despite the availability, flowers need to be ordered in advance to ensure the color, type and amount is available on time, during the wedding and also less disappointments as far as the wedding is concerned.

 Well besides use of flowers as beauty, the whole theme can be enhanced when flowers are well arranged,
most weddings in Kenya use flowers for bridal and maids bouquets, flower girls, bridal car, flower arch, ceremony aisle, reception tents and walkway stands to the cake the arrangements are most of the time similarly done as weddings use reception set ups for a majority, others have center pieces for restaurant set ups. The arrangement have to be attractive and meet the theme of bride and groom in order for theme to be "the icing on the cake."

Sugar and spice

I love poetry not composing but reading what other people have written and making sense of some while others are self explanatory. The poem Sugar and spice and all things nice that's what girls are made of.............are words I have heard over the years I wasn't sure the source or how the rest of the words continue but Wikipedia.org-the online encyclopedia is quite helpful as I was able to trace the origin to  of Sugar and Spice to a 1963  song by Merseybeat band The Searches. A further search led me to scrapbook.com and the rest of that poem brought to my mind a lot of things that I can easily associate with weddings:


Sunshine and rainbows
and ribbons for hair bows
that's what little girls are made of

Not to drift too much to the poem: one thing most guest in Kenyan weddings await at a reception is the wedding cake. So why the poem: Cakes are sweet (sugar) and the flavors (spice) vary from individual wedding, The cake flavors vary from: chocolate, marble, lemon, carrot, and even black forest are amongst cakes that I have seen being selected by brides around especially in Nairobi. The wedding Icing can include: Royal Icing, Fondant, Whipped and Butter creams.

Whatever option one settles for its important to remember:

1. The groom should also be comfortable with the flavor chosen, it would be terrible if its a flavor he hates or even a few people close to him can't it eat.
2. Its good to keep in mind the color scheme of the wedding so that the cake blends with the overall theme.
3. If you choose to keep a tier for yourselves having it done in fruit cake is important. More importantly to check with your cake vendor before you settle for your option.
4. Whether you settle for decorations for your cake that are flowers that are either silk, icing or fresh flowers your cake decorator is in the best position to advice you including how much cake-the number of tiers that will feed your guests.
5. Be sure to check out the wedding cake servers, knives, and stands the vendor plans to use for your wedding.         
   
   
   

After all is said the overall cost should fit within your budget and enjoy the day, when it comes without much worry. Our next article will discuss the second part of the poem that I highlighted on this article. Feel free to leave a comment