Our Traditional Wedding – Culture, Outfit & Food!

In African cultures weddings go beyond the white dress and vows as various traditions, rites and ceremonies truly define the beginning of a marriage. We have been onto the cultural and traditional events of our wedding since March and during this Easter we finalized our traditional wedding!

We started off with introductions whereby my aunts and I visited my then fiance’s family following which him and his brothers also took their turn to visit my aunts home, this I understood was done for both families to know the families we were marrying into and in turn for my fiancé to have my aunts ask my father permission to marry his daughter on his behalf – pretty much by bribing my aunt’s onto his good side with gifts!

Hereafter my husband to-be, his brothers and his uncles had to come pay dowry termed lobola/roora in Zimbabwe. Lobola/roora is a customary token paid by the groom to-be when he is about to marry his bride to-be to his in laws. The dowry comes as a list of gifts of which some are monetary and some are cows listed by my family to his and then settled as negotiations by his uncles with my family. After lobola is negotiated there comes welcoming of the bride into the groom’s family referred to as “kupururudzwa”.

Speaking of food, there was no shortage of African cuisine on all the events: When my husbands came for the lobola negotiations we made peanut butter rice and goat meat stew and road runner chicken stew. When my aunts and my sisters and I went for kupururudzwa we had to cook for my in laws and extended family in their home and we chose to make finger millet sadza (sadza rezviyo) and road runner chicken stew. On both these two events I couldn’t help but stuff my face with all the delicious meat. My aunts and sisters helped me cook and clean the yard and give my in laws and extended family water to bath, where they left some money in the buckets as a token of appreciation after they finished bathing and I really enjoyed every moment of it. I even ate finger millet sadza for the first time and I’m looking forward to making it for my husband again soon. My family in love had an entire ceremony to welcome me into their family and on the last day we planted trees to symbolise how we are now joined by the hip and I’m still in awe over everything. Pictures and video footage below:

Both the lobola negotiations and the kupururudzwa was done kumusha, Magunje and Mushunje respectively and on the day of the lobola negotiations it rained (something my Dad said to symbolise God blessing our marriage) and we didn’t get to take a lot of pictures so we (ok l) decided to celebrate by doing a traditional wedding photoshoot. I styled my hair into a Bantu knot out, had an off the shoulder mermaid African print dress tailor made for the photoshoot and got a makeup artist beat my face! Please enjoy these photos from our photoshoot.

Now that my parents and extended family has given their permission for their daughter to be taken away, items on the list have been presented to my family and I have been welcomed into my husband’s family all with our parent’s blessing, we are now married in the eyes of Shona tradition.