How Timothy and Barbara Planned and Held a Wedding During Lock Down!

When Timothy Epaja, a valuation surveyor with Uganda National Roads Authority and Barbara Namusubo, a procurement officer with Uganda Bureau of Statistics were planning their ‘pentagon wedding’, they envisioned a colourful party with over 300 guests in attendance to witness their beautiful union. They started planning in December 2019.

“We held a couple of meetings after our launch in February, when lock down was announced we continued planning using social media,” Epaja recalls.

But when lock down was extended more and more, they were forced to alter these plans and hold a simple scientific wedding reception on 21^st May, 2020. The reception was held at Sports View Hotel and had just 45 guests in attendance.

Meeting

We met at a dinner. I took her number to send her pictures of her I had taken. We kept chatting and later got hooked.

Engagement

So it was her birthday, I took her and her friend out for lunch. Meanwhile, as soon as we left for the party, another set of mutual friends came home to prepare a party for her. When we returned in the evening, I let her get in first. She was surprised by the friends who wished her a ‘happy birthday’ and when she turned to ask me whether I knew a thing about it, there I was on one knee with the ring.

Introduction ceremony 

About the Kwanjula, we had a scientific one where we met with the parents and settled things, they blessed us and we got a go-ahead to do the wedding.

The scientific wedding

Our initial plan was to host 300 guests, including friends, colleagues and relatives, to a fabulous wedding bash, which is every bride and groom’s dream. The event was set to be held at a hotel in Kampala. Just like every couple, you can’t have all the money to put the event together in a lump sum. So, we kept on depositing, which the hotel was okay with, and other service providers too.

When Covid19 came into the picture, we hoped that the lockdown would be eased in about two weeks because after those first two weeks of lock down, we were still safe to hold our big celebration as planned. However, when the lock down got extended we were left in a very hard place. We really didn’t want to hold a scientific wedding, so we exercised a bit more patience. But as we waited, our date drew closer, we ran out of patience. We consulted our parents who advised us to wait, not to let Covid19 rush us into getting married. We listened.

After our wedding date had passed, and our parents seeing other scientific weddings happening without a hitch, they gave us a green light to go ahead to hold the event the new way. We immediately went to church and booked dates afresh. They gave us 21^st May. So, we had to plan the whole event again in just two weeks. Remember that during that time, movement and transport were restricted, but we had to make our dreams come true whichever way. It was a real hustle, we had to move around mostly on foot to book service providers.

Planning 

Since we had had a plan to hold a big wedding initially, we didn’t start from scratch. We reached out to our service providers. We had to look for a venue for the reception. Church was already cleared. Our outfits weren’t yet fully cleared. We also had to do a bit of decoration and photography. We created a list; we already had a photographer whom we had already deposited money with, so we ticked that off. We had a decorator whom we had deposited some money with, so we ticked that off as well.

We then reached out to our initial service providers starting with the decorator, only to be disappointed. They told us that they had used the money to buy stickers and boards meant for our event. They were indirectly telling us that they had no money on them to provide for our new event. So, we had to look for money afresh to cover for decoration. Even the cake person, on learning that we were planning a scientific wedding, they asked for a lot of money, even when we had cut down on the number of cakes we wanted from them. This looked like doom, we had to reach out to another service provider, who did an awesome job.

I had to stay at the venue till late in the night supervising the setup to make sure nothing was left to chance. That’s how we did it.

Style

Hair and makeup was done at ‘Lady Moreen’s salon. Barbara loves gold and plenty of stones, so she went with that. Her gown was from “Bridex”.

Reception 

We held our reception at Sports View Hotel. Our plan was to have 35 people, we ended up with 40.

Budget 

Budget was tight. We had a couple of disappointments from some service providers we had deposited our money with as we planned for the “Pentagon” wedding which strained our budget. We had to find new service providers which wasn’t easy because you know movements were restricted in a way making transport hard but we managed to make it happen.

Entourage 

If Best man and Matron count as entourage then yes we had one. They are all we had.

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To feature, drop Kadali an email to weddings@satisfashionug.com