Tobago Wedding

Brother James wanted us to come his son's wedding on Sunday April 12th.  We headed to the wedding right after church knowing we would be late but hoping the wedding would be on Trini time.  Thankfully they were late.  We found our seats and a woman sitting right in front of us after she found out we had never been to a Tobago wedding directed us where to go to get the best pictures.  The only problem was she sent us the wrong way and I tried to get back to my seat thinking I would go down the center aisle only to find the wedding party was coming right toward me.  I quickly turned around to find I was looking at the video camera.  I'm sure the couple will see the video and wonder who that white lady was who ruined her wedding video.  Oops!  Boy, did we get a lot of stares when we came in.  We were the only white faces in the crowd of 100+.  I tried not to be noticed but we stuck out like a sore thumb.  Anyway, it was an interesting experience going to the wedding that lasted about three hours.  I thought American weddings were expensive.  There were probably 25 flower girls, bridesmaids, little grooms men, regular grooms men, a tiny bride and groom.  Everyone was decked out in beautiful dresses, fancy hairdos, rhinestone necklaces and make-up.  It was a huge production.  We found Sky James waiting to enter in the procession.  

 Daniel James.  We asked him where his parents were and he didn't know.  We found out later that they never made it to the wedding.  ???  I felt way under dressed for the occasion. 

 A little older bridesmaids.  

 More bridesmaids.

 More bridesmaids

 Mini bride and groom.

 Several flowers girls

 and finally the bride.

 Brother James's son Shirlon.

 The woman was the pastor of their church who led the congregation in a song about showering the bride and groom with blessings.  She had an incredible voice.  Then she gave a speech with all kinds of advice about how to have a successful marriage including going to Victoria's secret and whenever she said something she would always say something like do I have an amen to that.  Then the crowd would shout Amen.  Then the man married them.  During the vows when the bride was repeating the vows when he said for richer or poorer, the bride said, "For richer, not poorer." Wow, the preacher stopped and kind of chastised her and told her that if she said that their vows would not be valid and did she want to do that?  He then started the whole ceremony over again and the second time the bride said it correctly.

 A lot of the men had special symbols cut into their hair.  This is Daniel.  

 Outside the church when everyone is leaving to the reception in a long motorcade that took everyone halfway around the island.   It was kind of funny, the lady that was so helpful to us during the wedding got in our car with her kids after and we ended up taking them to the reception.   Really not sure how that all happened.  

 The reception was at this big school on the other side of the island.  We didn't go to that because we hadn't packed to go to St. Vincent the next day and didn't plan for the wedding to be that long.

 We found Brother James over at the reception place and he didn't say why he didn't make it to the wedding.

Weddings are really a grand affair!