Two Cultures, One Wedding: The wedding Review

Let’s talk food, guest lists, seating plans and outfits.

Pre word

If you have the pleasure of knowing us in real life, you may be tired of all this wedding talk by now. But we’re not quite ready to let go of it just yet (18 months of planning and prep… so, yep, we’re going to milk this just a little bit more!)

 Planning a wedding is difficult. Planning a wedding during a pandemic is nightmare. Planning a wedding in a pandemic while the bride is in her second year of a clinical doctorate added a whole other layer of challenging. So, one amazing wedding co-ordinator, two cancelled weddings, a venue change and approximately 200+ emails sent later, we successfully managed to have the best day of our lives so far. And we’d do it all over again. We’ve even already started talking about a party for our anniversary because who can say no to cake, food and dancing?!

Why did we get married during a pandemic while Jo was doing her clinical doctorate?

 Jo and I got engaged back in March 2019 in a snowy Central Park in NYC. At the time we’d agreed on a long engagement. We’d go to plenty of wedding fairs to get all the freebies we could, enjoy being engaged… we really wanted to make the most of it. We also knew planning a wedding during Jo’s clinical doctorate wouldn’t be easy.

 We decided on a date of June 2022/23. But fast forward to December 2019 and driving home for Christmas. We saw that our first-choice venue (which shall be known as Venue A) had a date that had become available for half the price! The catch? There is always a catch. The catch was that the wedding would have to be in August 2020. Leaving us a mere eight months to plan a wedding…

 This venue was our dream venue. We had visited it before, and it was safe to say it was our favourite. It was in keeping with our vision and both of us felt this was ‘the one’. After a weekend of thinking it over we thought YOLO, let’s go for it. In hindsight YOLO may not be have been a good idea when making wedding decisions but, hey, at the time it made sense to us. 

Wedding date sorted. Now the fun could really begin.

Wedding planning: Mixing Sierra Leonean and British expectations and cultures

1.        The guest list

 First things first; the guest list. Now, I know this is not only a Sierra Leonean thing. It’s probably an African culture thing – don’t hold me to it… because I’m not prepared to speak for the whole continent because that would be nonsense . But, when it comes to getting married, the parents want every auntie and uncle present. This is partly because they want to show you off (because, let’s be honest, our parents love to do this) but, also because it’s a sign of respect for those who have helped raise us – it’s the notion of ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. 

Now, let’s break this down. Again, I’m going to say within MY culture because, again, I’m not speaking for the entire  continent. In my culture, the terms ‘uncle’ and ‘auntie’ have two meanings. You have your blood relative uncles and aunties, but the terms also refers to anyone older than you as a show of respect to your elders. So you can see how the guest list could spiral here…

Two things worked in our favour; my older brother was already married so that conversation with my parents about limiting how many uncles and aunties went to their wedding had already been had – winning. I know that  that conversation did not go down well – but, hey, he’s the older bro and set a great example. Secondly and more importantly, Jo and I had a very clear vision of our wedding and who we wanted there. Our vision was for a simple wedding and we only wanted our closest family and friends who had been part of our relationship and knew us. So, creating a guest list and axing some names was easy (…easy for me, Ken, at least because I’m the stubborn one).

 We were set! We invited 75 people to the day and had an extra 25 invites for the evening.

2.        The outfits

It’s February 2020. The wedding planning is falling into place. Jo’s wedding dress was ordered, decorations chosen, photographer and videographer organised, food tasting was pencilled in for later in the year, CAKE TASTINGS had already been completed and the flavours were decided (Chocolate and Biscoff and Carrot Cake). And, like with all plans, while there were a few bumps along the way, we got through them all… or so we had thought. Turns out our biggest ‘bump’ throughout was COVID-19 and little did we know it hadn’t finished with our wedding yet.

 It was at this point we worked out our wedding had to be postponed. The now obviously over optimistic idea that COVID would have disappeared by the summer of 2020 was crushed. We didn’t want to risk a ceremony of up to 30 people (perhaps even 15! it was rumoured at one point). So the wedding date was moved to August 2021.

 This turned into one of our biggest silver linings however because it gave us more than the original eight months to plan our day. It meant we could look back over the details we had brushed over due to timing. One of those details being our outfits.

 The Asoebi - pronounced Asho Eybee - originates from the Yoruba and translates into English to mean family cloth. Specifically, the Asoebi is a traditional uniform dress worn during weddings and other ceremonies. The tradition began in Nigeria and has since spread to western African countries. Its aim is to show cooperation and solidarity, along with identifying family.  

 Asoebi are handmade and ours ideally would have been made in Sierra Leone out of our choice of colours and fabrics. Thanks to the postponement of our first wedding date, we now had the time to get them made and shipped over! And, let’s be honest, it was definitely worth the wait because they looked amazing. 

Choosing to wear an Asoebi was important to both of us. Firstly, it was demonstrating my history, background and culture. Also, it showed that Jo was prepared to fully embrace my culture and was officially becoming part of my family.

 We managed to the find the perfect balance for us and our vision of how we wanted our wedding to be. We wanted it to be a day of dancing, food and cake. So we chose the traditional British style wedding dress and suit for the ceremony, then changed into our Asoebi for the reception party which was a perfect cheeky outfit change - who doesn’t want more than one outfit! The mix of both outfits provided the perfect balance to embrace both our cultures. 

 3.        The seating plan

 Roll on February 2021. Six months to go. Jo and I are engrossed in watching the Super Bowl. Wedding planning had slowed down because no one really knew what was happening with good old covid-19. But there was a moment when we both had a realisation. What was going on with our wedding? After some digging, we found out that our wedding venue and our wedding plans had somehow along the way been swept up and changed without us realising. As you can imagine, there and then we called up and decided to cancel the wedding venue. Our dream, ‘the one’ venue, Venue A. (Amazingly we did not lose any money and we got our full deposit back due to them breaking a clause in the contract, something they  “failed to mention”. They weren’t so dreamy in the end)

 So, we’re sitting there in February… all the suppliers ready but no place to have the wedding. It’s still lockdown (remember that thing). We had to get specific about what was important to us – and fast -: who we wanted there, what we wanted and how the day should feel. One good thing about COVID and everything that went with 2020 was you found out a lot about your friends and family.

 Cue the scramble for the new venue and Jo’s utter brilliance. Jo managed to track some venues that fitted what we wanted. The tricky part was because of COVID (shock horror). We couldn’t visit the venue in person and had to complete a virtual tour. Our wedding venue to be, Vaulty Manor, were great (and shout out to Kate - the best wedding coordinator we could ever have dreamed of). They allowed us to book the venue with a deposit however agreed with us that if we didn’t like the venue when we saw it in person, we could cancel and get our money back no questions asked. We had to wait until June to visit the venue in real life but thankfully it was 10x better.

 Three months to go. Time to sort out everything we had put off.

 One of the tricky things about weddings is always is the seating plan. Now, we didn’t really think a seating plan would be needed. We also weren’t particularly keen on a top table as it was far too formal for our liking.

 What we ended up deciding on for where we would sit is at a sweetheart table - which we were both glad our wedding planner Kate suggested. We strongly recommend this for anyone else.

 Now for the guests…

My theory around the seating plan was that everyone’s an adult… surely, they can figure it out. But Jo made a good point… we didn’t want it to be Jo’s family on one side and Ken’s family on the other. It would of  looked like the segregation seen in 1960s America. It’s safe to say I was wrong and Jo was right. We decided on putting similar ages together and roles within the family. So Table 1 had Jo’s parents, my parents and the aunts and uncles (you can never forget the aunts and uncles), Table 2 was for our siblings and other family members and Table 3 for the Bride and Groom party. All the other tables were for our friends – and they were easy to arrange (no offence guys!)

 4.        Food

Food is important at any event (not just for me). And, obviously, food is more than just food. Food says a lot about who you are and where you’re from. It’s a part of your identity and culture. Throughout the wedding process (planning doesn’t give enough emphasis of how much work it takes, I swear), food was something we didn’t really consider. Even though we love food, we didn’t really think of the implications of it. We already knew were wanted to have a buffet style BBQ rather than a sit-down meal - mainly because we’re not sit-down meal kind of people. What we failed to think about was what me (Ken) and my side of the family wanted and expected.

 When you think BBQ you think burgers, hot dogs and salad etc. But I’m from Sierra Leone. Whenever I went to parties or events, the food was always Sierra Leonean. Not having any Sierra Leonean food at our wedding would have been a statement… and the wrong one at that. It would have been the same as not having our Asoebi. Our wedding was a celebration of both our cultures.

 Now, we weren’t expecting the Vaulty Manor caterers to be able whip up some traditional Sierra Leonean food - we would have also been surprised and maybe even a little shocked if they could do that. It was also way too late in the day to book new caterers. But Kate and the good people at Vaulty Manor were flexible and happy for my family to bring food to the wedding! They understood how important it was to me and my family - so a massive thank you to them.

 The fact our friends, who were from different parts of Africa, were happy to see some Jollof and plantain (amongst some other good stuff) confirmed to us that we had made the right decision regarding the food. It also made Jo’s day having my mum’s plantain there. It’s how Jo and mum bonded. Whenever we see my mum, she cooks food for us to take home. Jo being a vegetarian means she can’t have the stew and my favourite-cassava leaf (I’ll get into this another time), however my mum will always make plantain and Jo will be a very happy lady.

 The outcome

Once the guest list, the food, the Asoebi, the seating plan and the ever growing to do list was completed, it was a simply a case of enjoying the day (blog of the actual day and honeymoon to come). We can gladly say it was the perfect day. The only issue is that it went too fast. We got everything we wanted and for that we are thankful.

Special thank you to parents for all the help and support.

The bride tribe - Harley and Danielle - who were amazing in the lead up to the wedding and throughout the day.

My best men Larry and Alex. Larry the best older brother and role model and professional dad dancer.

Alex, a true best friend who’s best men speech still has me in stitches and cringing all at the same time.

Kate and Vaulty Manor, for hosting us and providing us the best memories.

If you made it this far. Thank you for reading, 

Love,
Ken and Jo (AKA… Mr and Mrs, we’re not over it yet)