Diaries of Hephzibah | Part 6
My Wedding Day ...
We are now in September! Talk about how time waits for no one…
The month of September is a special month for me. I got married in September twenty-eight years ago. When I think about how far God has brought us (my hubby and I), I cannot but just be grateful… it is not unlikely that some individuals never thought it will work or even last. Here we are by the grace of the living God.
Something interesting happened on our wedding night… before I tell you that, let me give you some bit of background…
So, I met my husband in church, better still he met me in church… I was in the choir and was one of the front-line singers so everyone knew me. I had never seen this brother (now hubby) ever. We just finished choir practice on a late Friday night and someone I knew introduced this tall brother to me. I was not prepared for what happened next… Fast forward four years later in September, we got married. The wedding was well-attended and it took the whole day. Two days prior, we had a family introduction and traditional wedding. The Saturday morning started off very early, as early as probably 4:00 a.m. I am not sure I slept that night, but this was the day we had been waiting for…
Let me talk about the preparations…
As soon as we started talking about getting married, we fixed the date in September. I had visited his village and my in-laws to be. It was such an amazing experience. We enrolled in the weekly intending couples’ classes at church and went for counselling as well with one of the elders who took interest in me in my early Christian days. We both were working, he as a federal civil servant and I on my first job as a personnel officer (let us just call it for what it was…File Clerk. But we do not despise the days of little beginnings!) We had very little and we trusted God. My extended family members rallied around and took over the wedding plans. I can say now, that was divine favour and a miracle!
My wedding gown was given to me by one of my friends who got married about a year before me. All I needed to do was some fittings and dry cleaning. A very dear woman in church paid for the cost of fitting and dry-cleaning. My accessories were also provided to me (I had to return them post-wedding) by another friend who got married two years before us. I guess the only thing I bought that was new were my shoes. I could not afford a new wedding dress and yet I looked amazing in my “borrowed” gown!
As soon as plans for our wedding commenced, we started looking for suitable accommodation (my hubby-to-be was living with relations at that time). We were desperately looking but found nothing within our meagre budget. Fast forward seven days to the wedding day, my hubby informed me he found a place but since it was a weekend, he could not pay for it until the week of the wedding! I think he took me to see the place just days before the wedding and I was so busy, I could not think straight. However, it was a relief that we had a place we could call ours. So, come the wedding day, it was a big fun-fare, lots of people and everything including the reception lasted almost all day. After the reception, we had arranged to take photos in a studio. After the photography sessions, we began our journey for final parental blessings. First stop was my mother’s family, then my father’s extended family, then my father’s immediate family and finally my husband’s family, all of which lasted until about midnight.
The next thing was where will the couple sleep on their wedding night, after a long day? There were suggestions that we should sleep with other of my husband’s relations who had come from far and near. I could not care less where I laid my head that night as I was exhausted but my husband insisted we had to go to our brand new apartment to rest from all the activities of that day. So, off we went with the help of my husband’s friend who was living next door. We arrived at the new place within half an hour and lo and behold, it dawned on me that it was an empty apartment! There was nothing in the apartment. No chair, no bed, no mattress, no clothes, like it was bare! Seriously!!! Well, my hubby had been proactive, he had grabbed a pillow and a large bedspread from his room at the other place. So, he laid the large bedspread on the floor, put the pillow on it and that is how we spent our wedding night and first night together on the floor… we started from the ground, literarily …Ground Zero!
That is how as a new bride I started this journey that is now twenty-eight years. I have since had opportunities to lay on beds from one-star to five-star hotels. I have had the privilege to visit lots of places that I have laid on beds that if someone told me on my wedding night, I could never have imagined. The lesson is, you never know what God has in store for you! God is humorous…hehehe
To be continued!
Talk soon,
Hephzibah
See you at the top!
Olayinka Hephzibah Ekenkwo
