KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) – The moment of truth for Ivan Arinaitwe dawned when he had to choose between many family members and friends whom he should invite to his wedding. An initial 150 people swelled to 300 when he was in pain. No matter how hard he tried, it would be difficult to achieve Uganda’s recommended ‘scientific’ marriage, slimmed down for the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Africa, where weddings often grow up, he would invite 1,300 people if he could. Now he is worried about how the uninvited may react and the consequences for his family.
“It’s a little complicated, actually very complicated,” said the employee of a government research agency whose wedding is planned for April. ‘But we have a scapegoat for the COVID-19 pandemic. I would say, ‘It’s not me. This is what the government said. If I did not invite you, please understand. ‘”
He is not alone. Many Africans are reconsidering large, abundant marriages amid efforts to discourage large gatherings to combat the spread of COVID-19 and in response to the economic devastation of the pandemic. In Uganda, a country of 45 million in East Africa where colorful wedding convoys are a street spectacle on weekends, President Yoweri Museveni last year ordered so-called scientific weddings, which were attended by no more than ten people, to spread the coronavirus to stop.
Museveni held such a wedding for a cousin in July in the lush gardens of the official residence, State House, with the masked couple in socially remote seats. Even the simple bridal cake looked gloomy, unlike the giant tiger cakes that regularly dominate the reception.
The pandemic enforces change in communities where family can mean a whole family and weddings are seen as the key to establishing the relationships between communities. Extensive families often plan weddings, and large, lavish families are a status symbol in places like Nigeria, where more than $ 2 million can be spent.
Many in Uganda have expressed skepticism about small weddings, and there have been reports that police are interrupting non-compliance ceremonies before the rules are gradually facilitated to allow up to 200 participants.
But now, as the pandemic continues to bite, more people are wary of their money.
“When the coronavirus struck, people adapted quickly, quickly,” said Rev. Sammy Wainaina, provost of the All Saints Cathedral in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, said. “For weddings, people got small.”
More Kenyans are now opting for relaxed “garden” events as well as the civic unions that have become popular in recent years, he said. While that may be a good thing, Wainaina says, he is concerned that some “may become very comfortable with such weddings and only later realize that they were not committed to the vows they made.”
The demand for church weddings ‘has decreased significantly’, he said.
A similar trend is reported in Uganda by Charles Nsimbi, an official charged with the registration of civil unions, who told the New Vision newspaper that the average number of unions per day rose to 12 from five before the pandemic.
Arinaitwe, the Ugandan who is planning a small church wedding, said he decided not to have the reception in his rural district, where even the uninvited could show up. The invitations specify two people, and no children. He knows that many people will be upset, yet it is necessary to keep the numbers in check and prevent him from starting his marriage with a solid account.
“As the disposable income of people has drastically decreased, people are in survival mode,” said Moses Mugarura, a Ugandan minister who owns a restaurant in the capital Kampala. It was once a big question by couples.
His restaurant did not host a wedding from February 2020 to January, he said. And he attended a wedding every other weekend after only four years last year, referring to families who were concerned that their qualifying daughters “are not being exposed to the normal opportunities.”
“I believe that many people have lost confidence and the fruit that hangs low has arrived,” he said, referring to living together.
But simply living together is not a solution for some in conservative societies, including Noel Mporebuce in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. When the Central African nation reported its first viral cases, it was preparing for a wedding originally planned for Christmas Day. The lock-in set to delay the pandemic effectively banned social gatherings and left him with a fading hope of a classic wedding.
“By this time we would be happily married and living as husband and wife,” he said. “Everything is now left in the hands of God. Coronavirus is killing our future.”
Another Kigali resident, teacher Emmanuel Gatera, described another problem for a sister whose wedding is planned for Christmas but is postponed indefinitely as her partner struggles to make money. The pregnant woman moved in with him anyway because she feared he would change his mind about getting married.
“Living together is unthinkable in our society, and that scar will stay with my sister forever,” Gatera said.
And yet the pandemic offers others the opportunity to bypass marriage ceremonies that normally cannot be bypassed.
Philemon Jambaya, a freelance journalist in Zimbabwe, said he negotiated the bridal price via WhatsApp, and then had a small and short traditional wedding recorded on smartphones. Parents of the family did not resist it, he said.
Its success is remarkable in the country in southern Africa where a traditional marriage can be extended. It involves up to a dozen steps that take months leading to a busy engagement and meal.
“I never imagined it that way, but I could not wait,” Jambaya said. “Everyone knew how much I loved her and how desperate I was to make her my wife, and that we also live in abnormal times.”
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Mutsaka reported from Harare, Zimbabwe. Associated Press author Ignatius Ssuuna in Kigali, Rwanda, contributed to this report.