Matching outfits at weddings are signs that you are next…

In the African culture, matching outfits with my partner means “Kabelo as a man is ready to send his uncles and aunts to ask for his partner’s hand in marriage”.

On Saturday, my partner and I wore matching outfits to a wedding. However, we broke the rules a little bit. Usually, when the theme is traditional African outfits, the man’s shirt is precisely the same pattern as the dress of the woman. So, even when the two are not standing together, the identical patterns of their outfits tells you who is with who.

In our case, you had to see the colour of my partner’s cute handbag to know that she was with me. Our outfits were matching but not the same pattern or colour. The wedding was attended in style, with a lot of people wearing matching dresses and shirts left, right and centre.

Speaking of wedding celebrations; in as much as we looked beautiful and classy, I still don’t approve of December wedding celebrations. I strongly believe that such a time should be reserved for our families and loved ones in their small doses.

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Wedding celebrations are demanding. They require a lot of sacrifices from people who are invited. It is strange to me how we have normalised celebrating weddings in December. The small village I come from, Pankop, alone had more than five wedding celebrations this past weekend.

It was busy. However, besides the complaints about not getting served booze or not getting food at the celebrations, friends and family spoke about how they went the extra mile to attend these wedding celebrations. They sacrificed time they could have spent with their families to go witness the beauty that is a traditional wedding celebration.

Some of them require travelling long distances on roads that are not safe at all.

What worries me the most is the recklessness on our roads. December is synonymous with an outrageous number of car accidents, with many of them being fatal. To choose to be on the road to attend a wedding celebration that requires you to drive and not walk into the house next door could be the last day one is seen alive.

Perhaps having wedding celebrations in December is not the biggest concern I should have. Drinking and driving, and the carelessness on our roads are what I should be worried about.

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If I am ever asked to wear a matching outfit with my partner again, I would do it without thinking twice. And if December is the only time one would be given this opportunity to wear matching clothes, then let’s continue to celebrate weddings in December, because I also wouldn’t mind being next in line to get hitched.

Kabelo Chabalala.

Kabelo Chabalala is the founder and chairperson of the Young Men Movement (YMM), an organisation that focuses on the reconstruction of the socialisation of boys to create a new cohort of men.

Email: kabelo03chabalala@gmail.com
Twitter: @KabeloJay
Facebook: Kabelo Chabalala

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