traditional engagement ceremony

I want to describe a really neat ceremony that I got to witness recently...it was a traditional engagement ceremony. Even though we think of "engagement" as preceding marriage, this ceremony acts as the final one in the process of marrying. The bride and groom each have their own entourage of people, represented first and foremost by a group of men who are either family members or close family friends. When I went, it was hard for me to tell who were "friends" and who were "family members," because the definition of "family" is much different here. For example, I didn't find out until the ceremony was almost over that the "father" of the groom wasn't the blood-father...rather, he was a close family friend standing in for the father. Interestingly, the groom himself wasn't even present for the ceremony...he was out of the country!

Each side has a spokesperson, and there is sort of set "script" that the spokespeople go through. First the bride's spokesperson asks why the groom's family has come. The groom's spokesperson replies that they have seen a beautiful flower and have come to look at her. Eventually the groom's family presents the bride's family with gifts, including minerals (soda), alcohol, cloth, jewelry, and more. The alcohol is later drunk by the representatives of the bride's family as a way of witnessing/officially recognizing the event.

Eventually the bride is fetched from inside the house and brought out...she is later moved from her side of the family to the groom's side, to show that she has become part of the groom's family. The whole ceremony has much more of an emphasis on the family than on the individuals.

It was really interesting to compare this traditional engagement ceremony with the more Westernized marriage ceremony that I saw in Kumasi during my second week here.