Ime's Wedding

My niece, Mercy, and my dad, watching the goings-on before the start of the wedding...

Before I left for New Zealand, in mid-December, I was privileged to be asked to be a bridesmaid in a cousin’s wedding. Ime and I used to teach together at the secondary school, and her irreverent sense of humor, and willingness to be honest with me about her frustrations at the school and with some parts of Samoan life, were refreshing and I’d immediately liked her. We’d gotten along well, and had fun complaining about various school issues, and helped each other with our respective language challenges: she translated some of my lessons into Samoan, and I helped her write examples of English speeches and essays for her students to learn from. She helped me understand some of the quirks that come along with teaching in a foreign school system. She also was very helpful in tutoring me when I’ve learned various Samoan dances in our village- and didn’t hold back at laughing at me when my moves came out particularly ungracefully. Which was most of the time.

The bride, getting ready.

Her wedding was an official Catholic wedding. Often, a couple will ‘get married’ which means that the girl/woman is pregnant and the boy/man (I differentiate between terms (girl vs woman) here because many rural girls are pregnant by 16, 17, 18…) moves in with her family, or she with his. But Ime was the ripe old age of 26, and her family (our extended family- her mother and my father are siblings) had decided to throw a real wedding, rather than her just moving in with her husband’s family.

Ime, my little brother Patolo (right) and a nephew assembling the ulas (like leis) for the wedding party. That's my family compound in the background.

Ime had much less control over her wedding than an average American bride. She didn’t really have a say over who her bridesmaids were (she did specifically choose me, with the permission of the families involved, but the other women were each cousins strategically chosen from different families) and she didn’t select the colors of the wedding (more on that later), the location, the date, the guests, her dress, etc. I suppose this is probably how it is in many non-western countries, but the thing is, this was a very ‘western’ wedding, at first glance. There was a Catholic ceremony in the church, there were flowers for the bridesmaids (imported flowers- no local, tropical flowers), a gigantic cake, all those western trappings… so to know that the bride was not very involved in the selection of those is notable.

Cutest flower girls ever! They're an assortment of my nieces, the one in the front is Malia, who lives on my compound and is a crazy little nut!

As a bridesmaid in a Samoan wedding, my role was very limited (thankfully!). I merely had to play Barbie-doll for the morning… there was no bachelorette party or bridal shower to organize. She had the puletasis made in American Samoa, and we just had to hope that our puletasi would fit. Mine was a bit large. Another cousin did my hair with all sorts of flowers, and they even dressed me. I basically stood there and let them fix me up.
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I'm goofing off with my niece, Tehila. That's my wedding puletasi. Note the flattering shade of mustard. And the girly hair. And the girly necklace!

The two days before the wedding were an intense flurry of activity. I mostly watched and socialized with the dozens of aunts and nieces and nephews and cousins that were in the village for the big event. They were hosting the ‘reception’ on my family compound, so they had to decorate it all with local flowers, they cleaned the grounds, they even built a new fale samoa for the occasion. My extended family pulled two (TWO!) all-nighters to prepare for this… of course blasting Samoan pop music 24 hours a day to keep energy up. I tried to sleep a bit, but between the music, the fuel stoves going non-stop cooking about a ton of chicken and other foods, and the fact that my family had decided to use my fale as the storage room for all the gifts they’d have to give away on the wedding day… it was difficult to get much rest.

This is the inside of my fale, which is stacked floor to ceiling with gifts and foods for the wedding. That's my sister, Filomena, and my nephew, Jey, asleep on the floor.

The day of the wedding, they woke me up at about 5 am to get ready for the ceremony (at 10 am). I was showered and dressed and took a zillion pictures of the 4 tiny flower-girls (my nieces) and watched the craziness. Finally, it was time for the ceremony. There were 5 bridesmaids, and Ime. Each of us were ushered to our own taxi (decorated with wedding paraphernalia) and then rode the one minute that it takes to get from my family’s compound to the church, about 500 yards away. (Which had me giggling the whole way!) Then we did the usual things one would expect at a western wedding… I walked down the aisle with my groomsman- a really nice Mormon boy who was incredulous at his luck at being partnered with me- and then stood, and sat, and stood, and knelt and stood again (as one does at a Catholic mass) and then took my first Catholic communion (!), and then walked out of the church with my groomsman. We had a tea at the pastor’s house with the priest (ice cream, cake) then got back in the taxis with our groomsman. We rode up and down my district in the taxis, honking and shouting all the way, then went to a nearby resort and took hundreds of pictures- just the girls, just the guys, girls and guys being formal, silly, groom and girls, bride and boys… every possible combination. Finally, we returned to my compound for the ‘reception’. This is where it deviated wildly from a western wedding…

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I was shown to my seat with all the other members of the wedding party, and then began a long afternoon of speeches, alternating with speeches, alternating with dancing at odd moments, alternating with more speeches. My father played DJ, and after an initial speech, Ime, as the bride, had to dance with members of our family, the women’s committee, the other bridesmaids, her coworkers at the school, the groom’s family, and members of the youth group. The dancing was very Samoan style, and all, strangely enough, danced to the same song. Yes. The same song, about 20 times in a row.

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Dancing over, we proceeded to more speeches: by my father (he is the highest chief in our family, so he did most of the talking on behalf of Ime’s parents), by the high chief of the groom’s family, and by a few other high chiefs. I blanked out from hunger and exhaustion, so I don’t know exactly what the speeches were about, but I’d guess something along the line of “Thank you all for being here, thank you to God for blessing everything in the world, thank you to the priest for deigning to conduct this ceremony, thank you to the groom’s family for taking on Ime, thank you to the high chiefs for existing, etc.”

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Then they brought out the food. My sisters and female cousins were all the servers, and the ‘gift deliverers’, so they made about 100 trips back and forth between the back fale and the tent we were all roasting under. The food was given out very much based on status. You know those circular plastic serving trays, like at Safeway, where you buy a vegetable and dip tray with pre cut veggies and a ranch dip in the middle? The gigantic trays? Well, those went to the most important people- the priest, the high chiefs, the groom’s family, the principal from the school, the wedding party (me). It weighed about 10 pounds. Seriously. Then the semi-important people got a medium sized tray, and the regular folks got a Styrofoam take-away container. All the food had the lids on. No one opened them to eat. So I sat there and drooled. I had a clear lid on my tray, so I could see the fried chicken and fried sausage and fried vegetables and fried noodles and taro sitting, steaming, inside. But the speeches went on. (Side note: As they delivered the trays and containers of food, I watched some of my teenage cousins slip illicit containers of food over the hedge to all the young men who’d been exiled from the reception, but were still watching from the street…)

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Then the gift-giving. (Not the gifts to the bride and groom… as guests arrived, they brought the gift to the mother of the bride, who then put a check mark next to the giver’s name, on the list.) These were the gifts to all the important people who apparently were integral to the wedding. I watched as my sisters and female cousins and mother brought out dozens of fine woven mats, adorned with bright feathers, and delivered them to the priest, the pastor, the groom’s family, the priest again, the pastor again, and then back to the priest. They gave out boxes and boxes of canned fish, and then several large pigs to the groom’s family. Then envelopes full of money. As the women streamed out of the back fale bearing all sorts of wealth, my father announced the details of each gift so that all the guests could hear how much was being given. Then the groom’s family gave their gift to my family. $1000 tala. Just over $300 US. For a wedding that probably cost my extended family $50,000 or more tala. I can’t go into more detail here on this topic, but you can imagine my thoughts on this.

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Finally, and this was the most unexpected part: As we were all sitting there, watching the gifts be delivered, drooling over our unopened trays of food, I was summoned with the other bridesmaids to distribute the cake. In western ceremonies, the bride and groom cut the cake, then feed each other a piece, everyone oohs and aahs, then we all get a piece, or two. (And this is usually after the meal, mid dancing, right?) Well, the fa’aSamoa, apparently, is that the bride and groom cut the cake together, feed it to each other, and then…

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It was one of those multi-layered cakes… the ones with tiers and tiers of cake stacked precariously high… so really about 12 cakes form the one cake. And there were two of these. Purple, and blue. After the bride and groom ate a piece, the bridesmaids then delivered WHOLE cakes to the guests (again, in order of importance). So the priest got two entire cakes (like, 16” in diameter. Huge.), and the pastor got one. The pastor’s wife got one. The groom’s father, grandpa, uncle and mother each got an entire cake. The principal got a half a cake. Several high chiefs got a whole cake, lesser chiefs got a half cake. The groom got half a cake. Then the cake was cut further… pieces into thirds, quarters. Minor chiefs got thirds here, quarters there. The mayor of our village got a half and a third. Finally, the remaining few cakes were cut into bite size pieces and the bridesmaids and I delivered one tiny piece to all the regular guests. We all held our piece of cake, another 4 or 5 speeches were made, and then we all cheered “Manuia!”, ate our piece, grabbed our take-away container of food, and left. The final “Manuia!” was still echoing in the air as the final guest left the compound, the exit was that quick! No socializing, no dancing beyond the single-song dances at the beginning, no lingering over cake. The cake toast was in lieu of a champagne toast.

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In all, it was a fascinating morning. I’d been wanting to attend a wedding since I’d arrived in Samoa, and it was much better to be a part of it, partly because my role was really only to sit there and look like a Barbie. (Which most of you know I’m really not that good at but I was very compliant!) I wasn’t expected to serve, I didn’t have to sit in the back, I didn’t have to talk. It was interesting to compare and contrast with a usual western wedding, and I really had no idea what to expect of this wedding so I enjoyed the unfolding mystery!