African Wedding Gowns

When we talk about weddings, tradition is the next word that comes into our mind considering that these customs continued throughout years have been the ones that haven’t changed in the life of a society. Therefore weddings are the celebrations that beside the celebration of a couple’s love and their joining together in a married life solemnize the traditions of a nation. Although there is a general trend nowadays to step out of the commonly performed weddings, there are however features that have been preserved in the evolution of a wedding festivity, whether we like it or not. For instance, as modern as a wedding tends to be some events that are part of the traditional way still make their presence among the range of events displayed in a modern wedding. The bride’s entrance, the exchanging of vows and wedding rings, the father and daughter dance, the mother and son dance, these are only a few to name in regard to the preservation of the tradition’s features inside a modern wedding celebration. But there are ethnical groups that more than any other social group are proud to display their wedding event keeping the line of tradition. Such ethnical group is considered to be the African people. No matter the place that has adopted them, they still run their wedding events filled with the customs of their tradition. It is the only way to help them feel their national identity, their roots coming back to them in the unfolding of a traditional African wedding.

I have witnessed once such an event without having a slightest idea that there was a wedding going on. The event took place in a national park by the shore of the lake with the nature surrounding the gathering of guests waiting in the sounds of the African drums, the ones that later I found out that they are called djembe. A drum that is made by African drummers out of goat skin tightly shaped in the round form of the instrument producing a variety of musical tones. The three drummers were accompanied by other African instruments that made different sounds never heard before except in these African tunes.

I understood by the looks of the guests gathered around those players that everybody was waiting for the African bride to come. Finally the bridesmaids were seen from far distance preparing the entrance of the bride. They were coming in African dance steps following the rhythms of the drummers. The bride behind them accompanied by her parents was wearing an African wedding gown in the form of a long white dress simply straight cut made of kaftan with some gold embroidery at the scooped shape of a neckline and a white piece of kaftan fabric was worn wrapped around her head.



I was surprised to see that her parents were shining in a golden texture of their clothing fabric, but somehow the bridal appearance in her simple garment conveyed a note of distinct elegance. Maybe this one was due also to her air of happiness that made her glow in her overall bridal appearance. So, it doesn’t have to be a truly expensive African wedding gown to make a bride shine; it is enough to be aware of her bridal condition, the one that leads her to the man of her life, to turn everything into the glamour of a day that brings the most important change into her life.