Following my heart to Cameroon

The wedding planning is coming along nicely and we’ve reserved a great location for the reception. The Cameroonian custom at wedding ceremonies is that the bride and groom choose a fabric for close family and friends. Well, it’s assumed that the bride chose it, but the groom is in the store too. When you send the wedding invitations you enclose a swatch of the fabric, and people can choose to buy it and wear an outfit made from the chosen fabric to the wedding ceremony. The “uniform” shows that people are part of the ceremony and supporters of the bride and groom. Then, for the evening festivities, everyone shows up in their own individual finery.

Being the clueless foreigner, I chose a fabric that is outside the normal range of prices for such things. It’s 5900 CFA (about $13-14) for 6 yards of fabric, 45″ wide. To my Canadian viewpoint this is an excellent price for fabric. In Cameroon it is definitely the high end of the scale and the cost of uniform fabric is usually more like 4 – 4,500 CFA. However, everyone has commented that the fabric is lovely and it’s going like blazes.

I chose an red/orange/brown version of a pattern that also comes in violet/blue/black, and the version I chose has disappeared out of the stores. The people at the fabric store thought that people were buying it for our wedding. We don’t think so. So I’m keeping my eye out for another wedding in the near future, wearing MY fabric. Except for the people that bought in the very beginning most people will be wearing the second version. My mom will have something made when she arrives before the wedding as well. So let me know if you’re coming and we’ll set aside some fabric for you!

I’m excited to see what everyone makes of it. I can guarantee that there will be pictures.

Tags: Cameroon, costs, fabric, Parenthood, Travel, Tag Index

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 8th, 2005 at 9:11 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.