Run your own race

BRIDE: Juliet Wamai

GROOM: Charles Wambua

DATE: October 31, 2015

GUESTS: 1,500

CEREMONY: CITAM (NPC) Valley Road

RECEPTION VENUE: Loreto Convent Valley Road

BUDGET: Sh1.1 million

FIRST DATE

Charles: It started out when some goods friends of mine were describing her and I took it upon myself to do my due diligence on the good report that I heard about her. We were both ministry leaders in our church — I in the Bible study ministry and she in the children’s. We saw each other during church engagements but after that conversation with my friends, I started to see her in a different light; I would greet her and with time we got to know each other. We exchanged phone numbers a while later, but our conversations initially leaned more on ministry and that gave me enough time to listen to her. Then one Sunday, I asked if we could meet up for pizza and that date formed the basis of the dates to follow and pizza became associated with our dates.

THE PROPOSAL

Charles: It happened three years after our first date. After confirming results from the necessary Biblical Gideon tests, the question was more of ‘when’ a wedding will happen than ‘whether’ it will happen. Of course when I asked her to marry me, it sounded like a serious joke. But as they say the rest is history...

Juliet: I was shocked and did not see it coming. That, together with the fact that the Sunday leading to the proposal he had told me that I was free to date anyone, just added to the shock element. In addition, I had always pictured him as a responsible person who would make a good father and he just did not look single. I though we were just hanging out as friends.

Charles: After the proposal we started laughing about the things I had said the previous Sunday.

THE DRAMA

Charles: I had started preparing for the wedding many years before we even attended premarital classes in 2010 and 2011.

As an auditor, I did a lot of risk management. I set a deadline of August 31,2015 - two months to the wedding - when all things pertaining to the wedding were to be set. As early as July, we had paid for the wedding venue. By the time the church was asking us to obtain certain documents from the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, they were surprised to learn that we were aware of the requirements and that we were either in possession of the required documents or in the final stages of obtaining them.

That does not mean that all went well. For sure and for a fact, her custom-made wedding gown was not ready by the end of August. Since we had made the tailor believe that August was the said date of the wedding, they thought that they would corner her to buy what they offer even if she did not like it for we would have run out of time. But they were in for a rude shock when we demanded for what we had paid for, which was delivered a month shy to the wedding.

I had also instructed the tailor in charge of the men’s suits that the suits should not leave his shop until I pick them up myself for purposes of verifying that all was made to agreed specification and the colours were right.

But even after giving that instruction, the vendor went on to hand over one of the suits to the groomsmen. True to my word, when I recalled the suit, I found that the groomsman had been given a suit of a different shade to what we had ordered and the tie was off. That was however corrected in two days.

Following a pre-shoot we had prior to the wedding, I had anticipated that the official photographer would come late, seeing that he arrived an hour after the agreed time during the pre-shoot. Since it was too late the change the official photographer, I hired a back-up photographer, just in case. And believe it or not, the official photographer showed up late.

As far as funds to finance the wedding are concerned, some friends insisted that we should not bother them with fundraising and that only those in their 20s should be assisted. They pointed out that people who are above 30 — like us — should have saved enough money for their wedding. Nevertheless, there are many others who gave a lot of support — in prayer, morally, and in logistics.

IN HINDSIGHT

Anybody planning to get marriage should attend pre-marital counseling classes. In the same way accountants are trained on how to read an invoice long before they see one, we should look at marriage as an institution. We should understand that marriage is not a contract with an exit clause. Marriage is forever and it grows and is unique in its own way. Run your own race, at your own pace, in your own lane.

WORDS: ROSE KWAMBOKA

PHOTOS: WILBERFORCE OKWIRI