Port Gentil/Gabonese Wedding (Part II)

Saturday we got up, ready and ate breakfast, then got a taxi to the ceremony. I was a little worried about this part - we had a wedding invitation, but it's not like it had an address on it - it said something about the sea...so how were they going to know where on the beach to take us?

Brant showed the invitation to the taxi driver and asked if they knew where it was. The guy said he did, so we got on in. We drove pretty much down the street and around the corner to a nondescript, white, two-story building. The driver stopped and we double checked, but he said that was where we were supposed to be. The ocean was there on one side, but not a beach or anything, and I was a bit confused. The driver pointed at the building, so we got on out.

I had been feeling nervous going, because as I mentioned in my first post, I had forgotten to bring more wedding clothes. I knew that there were two ceremonies - the traditional on Friday and the civil on Saturday, but I only brought the dress that was made for me. I thought maybe we wore them to both ceremonies. Once we were on the plane I started to freak out - why I hadn't I brought something else to wear? At the traditional ceremony people were definitely casual, so I started feeling a little better. And when we got out at the white building - I felt even better. There were definitely people in T-shirts and jeans.

But as we got closer we could see that they were all in the same T-shirt. So we were unsure again whether we were in the right place. We found another couple who were dressed up and asked if they were going to the wedding (by showing them the invitation) and they said that we were indeed in the right place. So we went in to the courtyard. Everyone was just standing around so we did too for a bit. Then someone called Brant and we were led into a room. There were chairs set up on either side and we were asked by one of the T-shirted folks whether we were there with the bride or the groom.

There were only maybe two other people there. So Brant and I started taking turns with Xander. Brant went back downstairs with Xander first and I took a look around the room. There was a sign up on the wall, something about the sea of Port Gentil...and suddenly it hit me. It didn't say sea at all. It said mayor. In my defense...French has crazy spelling. I knew what the word for sea sounds like in French, so when I saw "maire" it seemed right. Ends up sea is "mer." Whoops!

Anyway, Brant came up and sent me out with Xander so that I could see what was going on outside. Xander and I headed out and found the people in T-shirts singing everyone up the stairs. It's taking too long to figure out how to put text in between these clips, so just know...there are probably too many of them. They are from my phone, so the quality's not that great. But it just seemed really cool. I think I am running around in a few of them. The last five are of Kevin and Joelle making their way up and to the ceremony. When Joelle enters you can hear "Here Comes the Bride" playing inside, and the group singing to her from outside. It was pretty neat.When Kevin is entering the song has a lot of "Kevin, Kevin" in it - and Joelle's song has her name. Not sure if you can hear it or not, but it's there.

Joelle walking down the aisle - to Kevin, who stayed seated.

The two sitting at front - which they did the entire ceremony

Another shot of the two of them - including more of the audience. Oh yeah, I was totally under-dressed.

These two videos were at the end of the ceremony. One song at the end and then as they sang them out to the cars.

Okay, and now, apologies for this being so incredibly late. I was having major technical difficulties with the videos. And then, you know, life.

One person actually sent me an email to call me out.

Since then, two people have mentioned it in the last week or so.

So here it is, part two. Sad thing is...there is actually a part 3 still to come...