Welcome to Brides From Africa!
Oh yes, I'm pleased to be back with Brides From Africa.
Today, I have beautiful photos of Urhobo brides from the Niger-Delta area of Nigeria.
The heroine, Onome Keyamu from Flirty & Feisty Romance New Release - Tempting Desire - is an Urhobo woman. I hope you enjoy learning about Urhobo traditional wedding ceremony.
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| Tempting Desire is available on Amazon |
Urhobo traditional wedding ceremony begins with Udede, where the guests and groom's family are ushered in by the bride's family.
The spokesperson for the bride's family, called Otota I, inspects the candidate's fitness to be a worthy groom.
Once the Otota I is satisfied, the bride's family presents a number of eligible girls, including the bride.
The groom's lead person, called Usuovwa is asked to identify the bride.
The chosen woman ( the bride) stands by her mother or female guardian. She is asked by the Otota I to indicate her acceptance of the marriage proposal made by Usuovwa on behalf of the groom.
The bride is led away to another room, where she is joined by her bridesmaids.
Otota I calls the bride's family to a short meeting, called Ume, to deliberate further on the bridal proposal. Then, Otota I returns with the answer for the groom's family.
The bridal fee (dowry) and other settlements are paid.
The settlement includes;
Fee to honour the bride's father to purchase hat (erhu), man's wrapper (Ogbru) and traditional walking stick (ubiokpo) for his personal use.
A fee, called Igho-ugbe-rha-re, is paid to the mother of the bride to reward and recognize her for the labour pains she endured to give birth to the bride.
Ighoru-ughwa-raka is the fee paid to the women in the bride's family to buy a bag of salt as compensation for their services.
Emu-ra-aye is the bride's fee negotiated between the bride and groom's family representatives.
There are other symbolic gifts such as kola nuts, bitter kola, honey, bottles of gin or wine.
After the settlement, the bride, surrounded by her bridesmaids is led to stand before her father, Okpako-r'-orua or the Head of the family.
The Head of the family calls the groom to join the bride. They kneel in front of him. He formalizes their union, holds up a glass of drink, prays and pours libation (offer of drink from the glass to God and in remembrance of their ancestors).
He offers the drink to the groom. After drinking, the groom in turn gives the same glass to his bride. She drinks whatever is left as a sign of her consent to the marriage.
The bride returns the glass through the groom back to the Head of the family. An indication of their willingness and commitment to live together as husband and wife.
The bride is handed over to the Head of the groom's family who assumes responsibility of ensuring the husband and his family take good care of the bride.
Finally, the bride is directed to sit on her husband's laps. Their first public display of affection and of life together as a married couple.
While seated, the couple are showered with gifts.
Wedding dinner and other festivities carried on afterwards.
Find out more about Urhobo traditional wedding on books.google
Photos are courtesy of Pinterest.com
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If you have bridal photos to share from your place, send it to me via email and I'll share it here and give you credit. I love romance and swooning over bride photos is my hobby.
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