Weddings bring back interesting memories

May 01, 2011 Features / Columnists, My Column

---

By Adam Harris

On Friday many eyes were glued to television sets to see the Royal Wedding. Prince William was getting married to his fiancée, Kate, or as some knew, Catherine. It was the kind of wedding that would have left most Guyanese as paupers for the rest of their lives. The spread was lavish. But then again it was hosted by a multi-billionaire.
There were guests from all over the world and of course, most of them did not even know the couple. But this tradition of peeping at weddings must have caused them to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for the wedding.There were the suits and the fineries and the gifts. Everyone at that wedding had a new suit and the women, new dresses. And of course, there are the haircuts for the men. The thought of the new suit made me remember a wedding in Beterverwagting some time way, way back. I don’t recall the details of who the bride and groom were, but I do remember a fellow named Dudley being one of the groomsmen.
In the days leading up to the wedding there were those who flocked the tailor, a man named Baksh, to have their suits made. And there was Dudley describing his Continental suit. That was the wear back then. It comprised of a small jacket with the bottom cut in a curve.
So Dudley was describing this suit and how it fit. And on the day of the wedding he was as dapper as any man could be. But the police were there to take him into custody. It was a suit he stole from someone’s clothes line.
People begged the police to wait until Dudley escorted the girl from the church and they did. Dudley eventually spent three months in jail for that suit.
The fascinating thing about weddings is the number of people who run out of their homes to see the parade. In Guyana, the onlookers are often critical of the bride. They either do not like her face, or the fact that she had on too much powder, or that her hairstyle was something else and similar comments.
Then there is the reception. I have gone to wedding receptions where people complain about not getting food or that the liquor finished too fast or that the people closed the bar too early. The speeches are often words that one expects to hear. People praise the virtues of the bride and groom.
There was a groom who was a known thief but to hear the speeches about him was to believe that this man was the best thing since God made Adam. People have a way of pinning money on to the clothing of the couple. This man actually stole the money that was pinned on his wife.
I love the part where people talk about the marriage being made in heaven and that it would last. People advise the couple never to let the sun go down on their wrath. They also advise the groom to let his wife have the last word. If only people could heed those words.
I have heard couples quarrelling way into the wee hours of the morning. Neither man nor woman wanted the other to have the last word. If the man decides that the woman would have the last word and he remains quiet throughout the argument, the woman would instigate a response.
The man would hear about his mother and his ancestry, right down to the fact that they all are lepers. In Guyana the word is cocobay. Sometimes the woman would say, “If you don’t answer me I ain’t gun stop talking.”
And in Guyana many weddings are said to be held at the prompting of some obeah man or obeah woman. Some ‘knock’ is placed in food and prompts the man to pop the magic question. My friends recalled a wedding either at Beterverwagting, Buxton or Plaisance.
They said that somehow, the bride’s relatives put something into the groom’s food to make him ‘stay home.’ The people told me that the man must have got wind of the plot so when people were not looking he simply threw everything they gave to him, through the window.
It was not long after that the people swore that they saw pigs, fowls, ducks, dogs, cats, goats and even a few birds hooking a mate and strutting down the road as though they were going to get married. Those were not the days of video cameras so I was never able to authenticate this report.
I am not sure that there was black cake at the Royal Wedding, but in Guyana there must be black cake, and someone would rub a piece behind the ear of a bachelor. It is said that this is bound to make him seek a wife.
Well I have had many pieces rubbed behind mine and it obviously is not working. Perhaps the pieces of cake had too much rum.
But most of all I like some of the scenes. At the Royal Wedding when the priest said, “Speak now or forever hold thy peace” there was no one to say anything because they were specially selected to go to the wedding. In Guyana, I never heard anyone speaking his or her piece, even if one party was sharing a relationship with either bride or groom.
But I do know of women charging into the church to stop the wedding. There was this man who lived with a woman in Linden. He managed to plan a wedding with someone else without the knowledge of his spouse. Somehow or the other the woman got wind of it and even learnt of the church. I am sure to this day that a woman tipped her off.
However, she turned up at this church in Queenstown and raised Cain. It took the pastor and the orderlies to keep her out of the church. I don’t know where this man is today nor do I know what ever happened.
Roger Moore had something like that. I heard that he was smart. He printed the name of one church on the invitation but got married at another.
William and Kate partied, if they did, in full view. In Guyana, though, people heard of the bride enjoying a piece of her honeymoon in some closet with the best man. And there was this wedding in Agricola at which the floor gave way and the groom landed on the shop counter below. His new wife fell into the salt beef barrel.
I love weddings. I see people who know neither bride nor groom crying and I see other strange things all of which go toward adding to my memory base.

---

---