The troubles began a full 26 hours before the wedding was supposed to start.
Or, arguably, months beforehand, when I had to cancel and undo arrangements for a fastidiously planned (seriously, ask my mom someday about the spreadsheets. plural.) October wedding in Calgary due to one minor detail: the Canadian government would not allow the groom to attend.
I had left Cameroon at the end of May, naively believing it would be just a few months before Steve would be getting situated in Ottawa and kicking off his studies. Instead, it was more than six months before I was back in Africa, come to recuperate something I couldn't fit in my suitcase: his last name. (And as you likely well know, we're still waiting on that settling in Ottawa bit).
It certainly didn't help matters that I had a leadership role in a large international conference in the capital of Cameroon in the days leading up to the wedding. Seriously, thank goodness for my in-laws, who spent a great deal of time and money to plan and execute our big day. Let's be real, they're the real MVPs! Other than offering my opinion and preferences on things like colours and cake flavours, I didn't lift a finger in preparation for my nuptials.
It also didn't help that December is such a busy wedding month in Cameroon. By the time anyone had been able to go looking for reception locations in Douala, nothing was available on the Saturday of our chosen weekend. This meant that our ceremony ended up being scheduled on a Friday morning, just 16 hours after the conference ended... in a city five hours away.
So, the cards were a little stacked against us, but I didn't really notice the dominoes tumbling until around 7 a.m. on Thursday, the day before the wedding.
The night before I'd opted to avail myself of the hotel's laundry service so that I enjoy clean underwear for the last day of the conference and on my wedding day (without making my fingers bleed by washing them myself... I know, total indulgence, right?!) I was leery, confirming several times with the front desk staff that they would be done by Thursday morning. I had a long day to get through and Steve and I were hoping to leave in good time because there were still lots of things to do before the ceremony the next day.
Spoiler alert: the underwear was not ready on time.
In fact, it took nearly two hours of repeated calls to the laundry staff — during which time the front desk person kept me standing right there, telling me the person they spoke to would be "right up" — before one of the laundry personnel came up and reunited me with my long-lost undergarments... which were still unwashed.
So, not only was I incredibly late in getting to the conference centre for the day's proceedings, I was also going commando. Just casual like, while at a professional event with representatives of the Cameroonian government and UN Habitat, and the former premier of British Columbia. Grand!
As you can imagine, this delay (and the stress it elicited) cascaded on down through the rest of my day.
By the time I was able to go meet Steve to take the bus back to Douala, we were already hours behind schedule. I thought the Yaounde-based family had traveled ahead but as it turns out, eight of us, including his grandparents, were stuck traipsing from one bus company to another trying to find a VIP bus for the five hour ride. See, VIP busses are pretty swanky. They have air conditioning and WiFi and toilets on board. Non-VIP busses do not. But they do have a smattering of bugs for your enjoyment. Also, five seats across, instead of the standard four, for your ultimate comfort. And they aren't direct, for those who really enjoy the scenic route.
As you might have gathered, we were not able to secure tickets on a VIP bus. The other bus, not having a specific departure time, would not leave until all the seats were full, so we sat in the little sweatbox until about 10 p.m. before the driver finally hit the road.
Upon arriving in Douala shortly after 3 a.m., it became clear that there had been a miscommunication about accommodations for various family members. So Steve and his dad went off to find a hotel. Meanwhile, I went to my in-laws to get fitted for my dress. I'd brought an ivory occidental-style dress I'd had made for the church ceremony and reception that was all fitted and ready, but for the actual ceremony at city hall (civil ceremony as required by Cameroonian law and custom), my in-laws had had a local seamstress make a traditional style dress to make Steve's wedding outfit, from the fabric we had selected. I had picked out the style and was excited to see it and try it on.
As my mother-in-law pulled garments out of the bag, I grew more excited as I identified the matching shirts for my dad and my father-in-law, the dress for my mom, a smaller dress I assumed was for one of the girls. Then, with a racing heart and a sinking feeling, I looked at the last dress that emerged from the bag.
"Whose is that?" I asked my mother-in-law, though I already knew the disappointing answer.
"Yours," she said with surety, then saw the look on my face. With waning confidence, she asked, "Isn't it?"
Certainly, it was the dress that had been made for me, but it was not the dress that I had chosen. Best I can tell, the seamstress had decided the dress I'd chosen was too plain and wanted to do something nice for me by making another style, more flashy and exciting. Exhausted and overwhelmed by the events of the past few days, it was all I could do not to cry. I picked up the dress and went to the bathroom to try it on.
Our beautiful bold blue wedding fabric looked gaudy and overwhelming in the abbreviated mermaid cut, which hit midcalf, visually stunting my legs. The stiff, body-hugging fabric gathered my belly, emphasizing my paunch and the cap sleeves dug into my upper arm flab. I tried to zip myself in, like so much meat stuffed into a casing and felt tears sting at the back of my eyes. As I lifted my head to look at myself in the mirror, I saw the final straw: the giant yellow embroidery across the chest. If there is any colour I hate, it's yellow. I couldn't hold it in anymore. The sobs came out, rough and hysterical.
After calming down some, I suggested that I would simply wear my ivory dress, but my mother-in-law insisted that we rectify the situation. The seamstress would have to make a new dress from scratch — the dress that I had chosen. Though skeptical about the timing, I agreed, and my mother-in-law sent me off at 4 a.m. to get some rest, while she made for the market to get some fabric and rouse the seamstress to make a new dress.
At this point, it was pretty clear that the 9 a.m. ceremony wasn't going to happen at 9 a.m., but I still didn't know how far the dominoes had yet to fall.
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