Frankly I was thinking this was a done deal, but judging from the last wedding show, we must continue, its a fight that I might never win, but hey one woman at a time. And yes I too am wondering whats with the luminous blue tie and orange rose.
Let’s continue from where we stopped. Refresher course if you forgot,
click
GROOM'S OUTFIT
I love a classic dark suit, no tails, no waist coat. No shnick schnack, am the clean cut guy. The reason I like this is again the simplicity, it is so easy to pull off, dark colors are easy, looks good on everyone, really all body shapes and sizes love black, black is the international color of extreme sharpness.
I am not against tuxedos, but they should be worn to dinners, and tails are not bad either very gentleman, lakini we don't know how to wear them. We just struggle through them. So I want to strongly advice against it! Unless your father and forefathers were wearing them and it is a stronghold in your family, just forget it.
I have seen several grooms try it, tails, a total disaster, we just don't know how to work them, and this is not entirely our fault, we have bad tailors, and ordering is also a bad idea because this is the kind of suit that needs to be tailored on the guy, in fact the grooms suit should be tailor made, its just that the regular suit is easier to get in your size, Chinese are all over the place selling everything.
These things, -tails and waistcoats and tuxedos
are best worn when you are going to eat dine, preferably with the queen.
Lakini unaweza ng'ang'ana na yeye if you are absolutely sure the man can pull it off. With a good tailor very good tailor, not those ones of Kenyatta market. MAYBE! I have left you some wiggle room there.
See? they only look nice when you are toasting with the Main British!
I know there are several ways to go about your grooms outfit. I am also aware you want to be different, you want your guy not to be like the other grooms and you do know he is also going to want to have some say on that matter as well, as it is he is the one going to be wearing it, but you are about to be a wife! Start acting like one, there are tricks, if talking fails, crying usually gets the job done.
Am all for African, once again borrow a leaf from the naija folks, their festive outfits are regal and kingly.
If that is too big for your taste am sure there are smaller casual African print shirts that could be paired with some nice pants that you and the dude will like. And just forget that kaunda suit bullshit. I don't know who decided that it is cool to cut off the sleeves of a jacket.
And please have a look at how this man’s bride, groomsmen and bridesmaids looked hot
The white dude had the best shoes, black is too harsh on white like that, but once again I don't want to complain much. I love African. In fact even though I am thinking of doing an extreme British white wedding, I might just go to naija and do my wedding there. Never mind that I almost killed a potential groom the other week.
Even if I did have one, not now, now Chinedu is holding kenyans at the airport, though I hear Akinyi (Mrs. Chinedu) went there, and was all wifely and luo and shit, "of Omera what the hell do you think you are doing, do you know me? Embarrassing me all over the place!"
I just love love the way our naija sisters do their makeup, and we Kenyans cant get it right, and its not like we don't have good make up artists.
My girl Wacuka Thimba is a makeup artist and she is brilliant! But OH NOOOO you are spending 1million Kenyan money on your wedding but is having your friend who does not know the difference between a foundation brush and powder brush do your makeup. By the way, just because I can do my make up really well does not mean I can do other peoples’ makeup. You are spending a million, surely you can spend some of that on a good makeup artist.
Make up was not part of these series but I had to throw in the naija makeup and head gear! In love with it, totally (yes blogging can make you American too) am totally into that totally stuff. Did you know that these days, you can get the American accent while on transit, as in you are not even going to the US, and VOILÀ! huko you come back speaking like Kim Kardashian, but that is nothing, there is this person who went to the American Embassy to get a visa, came back to the house all Beyonce and shit. This American accent is deadly.
I keep getting off topic, but never mind me. This is how you should do you make up, look at her!!! There is a before and after picture, and the way these women do their head wraps, it should be a subject of its own, taught in girls high schools across the continent. This is the kind of make up and head wrap, that makes you stand taller and start acting like a queen. Not a princess, a QUEEN, you will automatically start doing the royal wave, you have seen Main British do it several times on TV.
Having deviated vastly from the subject, lets continue.
GROOM IN WHITE - Tell me, WHY?
A NO! NO! NO! for me, as in seriously why would you want that kind of bogus competition?!!
This suit is nice, the cut is great the guy looks good, but NO!
Sharp yes, but just BLEH!! its good, like the good you get when someone serves you egg white on a white plate.
Below is an okay attempt, its not really white, and I like it because the bride is so radiant, all brides should be all grins and smiles even when it is tears of joy you must be smiling through those tears not like some weddings, somebody is just pouting and sad like its a death match, woman its your wedding!! And I like her head piece too, remember it was one of my headpiece suggestion.
They are so cute! and you can see, he has tried to keep the suit casual. I don't know why her flowers are in a juala but I will tackle the flower bit elsewhere. And he is holding her arm rather awkwardly, sorry I notice things people don't notice.
I do have an exception for white though, I am human, if and only IF your wedding is on a beach, or on a boat in the ocean, ocean not lake, then YES YES YES, and the grooms outfit is 100% casual? and 100% LINEN? Then amen to that one sister. Good for you. One of my girls invited me to a wedding on a dhow at the coast and I did not go, I could kick myself in the butt.
ANYWAY LIKE THIS
Look at the way Tamara or is it Tia just glowing at her man, am not so happy with the shoes, but he is carrying the look rather well. No need to be nit picky there.
And if you really really must have your groom in white, then add black to the white, I am just throwing this idea here because I really loved this movie.
Jumping The Broom, but this is still in the eating clothes department.
I really loved that movie, I love weddings, especially when I am watching them on TV (the wedding show is not my favourite show, just in case that evil thought crossed your mind)
THE CAKE, The Most Important food you will Be serving, Be NICE to your CAKE!!!!!
That is a beautiful cake, seriously if you find this cake ugly or boring you need professional psychiatric help. I love this cake the more because as I have said 1000 times already, I am a friend of simplicity. You have noticed since we started the wedding journey my ideas are simple yet have class. (am the head teacher/headmistress/deputy and sub chief to myself, here I get to heap praise on meself.)
The classic tiered cake, the one we know from when we heard about weddings. Since you dreamt of your beautiful white wedding as a child, I have been told there are people who did this, but I don't remember having this dream, anyway here are a few of my favourites.
Yes it is true, I'm not a friend of round, I like cubes. (personal preference)
Look at that cake, its together, loads of class, and one of my girls, Ciiru had one like this one, and it was nice because her dude is white so the white and dark was perfect, and really it was way better than this one here, but just go with it , its the idea that counts. I will try and find her cake.
THE KENYAN BRIDE'S CAKE- Its a wonder in own right.
There is a MEMO that went round sometimes in 1994 that the classic wedding cake is boring and ugly so the Kenyan woman decided that she is going to go out of the box and be “creative“ -huuuge double platinum SIGH- its the devil himself who sent that memo!
We have gone on an overdrive with creativity.
That is the official Kenyan wedding cake, it comes in many forms and shapes and colours, but this is more or less the idea template. It is a cake that is all over the table accompanied by many things, because the Kenyan wedding cake is too important, it needs an entourage and friends surrounding it.
This is a good version, but everything you see there is the classic look, the table the tu funny drapes, the baskets, the ribbons, the forks with ribbon, the Fanta, Sprite, and coca cola, and the champagne and champagne glass on a plate with ribbons, we love ribbons, why the hell would you put champagne flutes on a plate? who does that? more ribbons, and nets and stuff on the table, remember the Kenyan cake cant stand alone. Someone also told us that tying cutlery and glasses in ribbons makes them festive, I think sometimes we confuse Christmas and weddings, I have seen people hang Christmas tree decorations around their necks as in the bride and groom. Come to think of it, on graduation day you see all graduates, (of a university!!) walking around with Christmas decorations hanging around their necks.
That reminds me, the wedding show of last week they had champagne in beer mugs, just beats me..
Look it don't always have to be champagne, there was the girl the previous week, best wedding I ever saw on the wedding show in a loooong time, she cut off the flowers, no chairs, they sat on hay bales, and the drinks were in cans, I was thoroughly impressed, different and yet good! I will mention her again in the decor part of this series, just to remind you again how impressed I was.
This one decided to go for the huts, - this is the African look, apparently. The champagne, ribbons and mosquito nets everywhere in place as you can see. I don't know where they are hiding the sodas. So this is how it works, if you love huts like this bride , you have several huts standing on the cake tent, the cake has to be in its own tent, its that important. If you love elephants, the cake is Nairobi National Park. If you are a Gor fan, the Cake is the whole team sans the coach and City stadium!
The cutting of the cake is a whole ceremony in itself as in there are speeches and songs and dance all in honor of the cake, it is such a big deal you would think the cake is the one getting married. In Kisii, it gets better, over there, the person who baked the cake is a special guest, who comes and sings praises to the cake.
These cakes are such a hit that there is actually a School of Arts somewhere in this country specialising in this fuckery. Why would you want to drape you cake in baby blue toilet paper?
Okay, if you dont want the classic cake, there is I think on ZUKU or DSTV or both, a food channel, they have these cakes show competitions, those people can make cake that is called art. Watch, and watch, then go on Youtube look for that episode, then take the video to your cake guy and say nataka kama hii, but look at their cakes too.
If that does not work, head straight to
CAKE CITY. Its in Westi, that muhindi can make cake, and they are brilliant and they taste like sin itself.
And if you thought that wasn't bad enough it gets better, there are people out there who actually think its a brilliant idea to have a cake that looks like them on their wedding day, as in a YOU cake! Is it me or some brides’ IQ drop to the one digit area just before the wedding? because can somebody please tell me wharrrissthiss??!!!
Look at the the bride's face, she is not happy because she is about to cut herself into pieces and feed herself to her guests, that is just wrong on so many levels.
leave you with the full frontal view so that you can be traumatised forever and just wipe that experimenting shit off your head.
Just look at that cake, even the cake is wondering WHY? LAWWD WHY??!!! Look, if your cake is sneering at you or looking at you with sad eyes, there is a major problem. Frankly a CAKE should not have facial expressions, you are allowed the small figurines on top of the cake but not the whole goddamn cake!
AI! am tired. She has tired me, there my English has left me.
Let me take a breather I will be back.
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DECOR, The Kenyan edition, Lets switch to template mode again
I really don't think I have rested enough, because this is another disaster zone, in fact I need a drink to do this, please give me 10 minutes, am going to the wines and spirits kiosk. OK make it 3 minutes, these kiosks are so many this days, they are beginning to overshadow MPESA shops.
This country and copying!
Keeping in line with my keep it simple mantra, this is my idea of how a garden wedding decor should look like, it is simple. I have chosen this particular decor, because we love garden weddings, but then again I doubt its is because we love gardens, its just because a garden, okay let me stop calling them gardens, they are usually in some open field.
Simple and classy is not good enough for the Kenyan bride
Here too we have one template just like the cake, as you have seen from the wedding show. If you have seen anything different let me know, okay my friend the one I was telling you of the cake, she had a beautiful garden wedding with real nice chairs, so simple and beautiful and classy, brought tears to my eyes.
We have completely forgotten that weddings can be done indoors too, that is why we have weddings on some bogus high school fields, and then it rains, no it pours, please if you are going to do a garden wedding, start taking the weather forecast seriously, I know on Kenyan TV there is no such thing as weather forecast, these days, its just “It will be shinny and rainy in most parts of Kenya“ end of forecast, so find a good source and google is a good friend here.
Look at the closeup! Surely isn't that just nice and weddingly (I just made up that word)
Okay lets just move on to the templates
This is the official template, so what you change is just the colours, and the flowers a bit, add or remove tents as you please like this.
Or maybe you like green?
The other thing we love: Covering the plastic chairs, no we don't love, its a must, and really that shit is difficult to pull off especially because we love taffeta, polyester and shinny fabrics, look either you go plain colour like this girl.
See the chairs there at the background, plain white, it really is good like that, and try and avoid those tu-shinny shinny things! See its not bad, it is not bad, a bit boring for the creative Kenyan but its not bad.
Your guest will add enough colour to the seats.
Or just go plain nude as in naked chairs!, don't cover hata kama ni plastic, they are your plastic chairs, if you have a majestic backdrop like this woman, the plastic chairs can go uncovered.
People will be staring at you and the hills, they will not notice the uncovered plastic chairs.
But this has to stop.
You do know you don't have to do chairs, the girl I was talking about before from the wedding show, who drank from cans, she completely left out the chairs, the guests sat on bales of hay, and it was so nice, the bales went perfect with the field, and there were no flowers, look at the way the flowers in the above green template look sad and lost.
If you are going to do chairs, then please do it properly. Use the chiavari chairs. Elegant, cute and they do not need covering.
Forget the bride here, I hate gloves, gowns with gathers and veils that hang like that on the back, its like they ran out of net. I don't even know why some of us still insist on covering their faces. Anyway concentrate on the chairs. She has the clear ones, which I dont like so much and the white ones. But there is one thing she is doing very well, am sure you already know it. She is walking down the aisle, alone!! love that, and I hope that man standing there in grey holding his waist in bad posture is not the groom, look even the guy behind the cameraman is giving him a bad look.
OOOK the good news is my girl Janet Ligare has these exact chairs!!! and her prices are pretty fair, and if you mention my name you will get a discount! Not that I have talked to her about this, but my name usually has magic. I have to find the address.
How can you not like this?!
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PHOTOGRAPHY
Please can somebody get creative here, and by creative I mean get a good photographer, I mean a good photographer, if you get a really good one, a good one means you have seen their work and you like, then please let them do their job, you are paying them, let them do their job.
You may have some ideas. No you do not, because your ideas are the same as the other 700 brides before you. A good photographer gets the right angles, light and has some good ideas of how to pose, let the photographer do his/her job.
And those styles of the groomsmen carrying the bride, or the bridesmaids carrying the groom? Surely. When will they end?
And bridesmaids, I know some of you would rather be the one wearing the white gown, but please keep it together and smile! just smile all through even if there is nothing to smile about. Those coming to peoples wedding and starting to weep like some ijiot I had of, ati you are sad the groom is getting married, chick dont even try at my wedding, best you stay in your house and drown your sorrows with sisters of death, you try to pull that stunt at mine, fimbo inaeza lia vibaya sana! Guests too, you be looking at wedding photos and there is this one guest with a long face in all the pictures, its a celebration not a funeral!
And this is a note to the guest, those useless guests who come to your wedding then take pictures and post them on facebook before the bride. Shame on you. The service is going on and you are busy posting armature pictures of your friend on facebook, let the bride go first, let her have her day, and post her pictures!! Then you can chomoa yours, si you let her show off first surely? why are you stealing her shine?
And especially the single ones love this, get yours first.
And here again I will send you to my girl the one of chairs, Janet Ligare, best you be a one-stop shop girl, Janet and her people are very good photographers, check them out.
Pixell8 Photography.
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YOUR FLOWER PIECE, The walk down the isle AND your After-Party Outfit- sounds easy, right? NO!
There are some women out there who still think plastic flowers are the shit, hata afadhali you walk without. A nice simple bouquet, and keep it to one or 2 flower kinds, like the woman up here, just because you love, roses, lavender, tulips, daffodils, iris, does not mean all of them have to be on your bouquet, really this is not your last day on earth, the house you are moving to?, you can have flowers in their too.
And once you have chosen your flowers, tie them up nicely, your florist who is a PROFESSIONAL, will do the magic, and please dont put the flowers in a juala like this woman.
This bride has done everything bad a bride can do, (and please am not talking about the white dude) but that she put the flowers in a jwala? not acceptable! but then again this could be 1983, brides did that back then. Si the dress of this mama and the one down here are the same.
Even this mama from my village has shindad them
They got it right, save for the 80's Tiara, unless you are Miss Kenya or Miss Idon'tknowwhuat, do not wear a tiara, its tacky, a best man a maid of Honor, and the children, you you want 87 bridesmaids and 65 groomsmen. You also want pink, yellow and your men should wear, fuchsia, green and maroon waist coats and yellow ties because those are your favourite colours; As is seriously chick?
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THE MARCH DOWN THE AISLE
This is how I would do it, I will walk down that aisle ALONE, in my exquisite gown, perfect makeup, I will hold white lilies, I love them, all radiant and beaming at my guests and eyes on the man!!! ALOOOOONE!!! at the end of the aisle, my dad or brother, will make the few steps from the front row seat towards me, take my hand and hand me over to my man. Its my day and all eyes have to be on me, its the only time and last time I am walking ALONE. (I cant say that “alone“ enough). Even you the way you have somad that thing, si its sounds and looks very nice.
This is something Kenyan women find unacceptable, your mother and father have to walk you down the isle all the way from the door of the church or wherever in the garden where the carpet begins till the end of the isle, now wacha in the garden there is space. IN THE CHURCH!!!! Jesus is not happy. You are crowding the Lord's Isle!!!
You know most parents at this age are not skinny models. I know my dad isn't, the man is tall and big, and my mom wasn't small either. So it is you in your big dress and both of your not so small parents, and your mom is definitely wearing the huge hat, I know my mom would have chomoad an Orie’s kind of hat size, so now mumeji squeeze kwa isle, why? Why must you do that, and just kill elegance and finesse of the whole walking down the isle affair, making it awkward and silly looking? If you can't walk alone, then your dad should walk your down the isle, or his rep, like your bro. You will have a photo-op, the one of just you and your parents, will look nice like this.
Isn't that nice? there is space for everybody, now imagine the 3 of them on one isle, aki I hope she did not do that. (and of course there is always the one person standing behind you staring into the camera and they have already heard, bride and parents only please call.)
And really must the groomsmen and bridesmaid dance and do weird things while they walk down the isle, the other day we were watching the wedding show, the maid is alone on the isle then a groomsman comes, then he twirls the girl around, a kind of salsa twirl (you you need to have some basic salsa skills to pull this move off) so you can imagine some were very awkward and if that is not enough, after the twirl, the man goes on his knees, gives the bridesmaid a flower, then stands up then they start dancing towards the altar, now am there thinking when will this wedding end surely? All that activity?! It was on TV so they edited, and I was already getting edgy, now imagine if you were sitting in that church, si that is when you pull out your ka small bottle of vodka.
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YOUR AFTER-PARTY OUTFIT
Aki there are a lot of stuff at weddings?
I am not going to talk much on this one, you have your style which by now I know is excellent, but here are some ideas.
Na kama huwes hooker heels pick something else, I like (my opinion again) to keep the colours of this outfit soft and subtle, but if you want to wear luminous red, please, by all means.
I would wear these too.
And for those of us who are still looking for a man, the right man, I can only leave you with a book. There is still hope, and when you find that man, come back to this blog and get some tips! You can
thank me later. And this book will help the wives too.
And then I dont want to hear this wedding story again; Kesho am going away from clothes, to home, I was thinking if we are going to look good on the streets, your castle, should look just as good, and I came across some things that I absolutely love, so kesho is TOI HOME, the we will move on to TOIHAIR, just because I have had a hair change, so we will talk about that, cheers and do have a lovely week!
Now that the TOI WEDDING SHOW is over, lets discuss, your opinions on weddings in general, what you like and dont like, gifts and wedding committees, the buying of the outfit if you are a bridesmaid, or the buying of an outfit for your kid if they are in a line up, your dream wedding ideas, what you like and hate about our weddings, just anything you want to add to this.
The best comment gets my Zarah sleeveless casual dress, (I love that dress it has gotten me dates) and yes it is white. Unfortunately or fortunately it is size 10-12 but it could fit your daughter you know? So we end this show with a GIVEAWAY!!!! and then I dont want to hear this wedding maneno again, and yes that is a repeat, unless of course Noni Gathoni gets any lighter!
