Traditional marriage first, followed by church wedding.

Greetings everyone!

I'm a guy who is well-cultured in the tradition of my land, and we don't joke with traditional marriage. I have attended many traditional marriages—not just the party scenes but also the part where the main deal is done: that's the part of paying the dowry of the lady. I have seen how the family of the bride-to-be gets so serious with every request they've made, and they do it in the midst of laughter too. The dowry of a lady in my hometown is not costly, but the family takes it very seriously—that goes to show how significant traditional marriage is. It's not about the money paid as dowry, but the blessings and agreement from both families that matter.

Traditional marriage is so important that when it's time for me to settle down, that becomes the first priority before any other form of marriage. Of course, there can't even be a court wedding or a church wedding if there was no payment of dowry in the first place—at least, that can't happen in my area.
I have also attended many church wedding events where the clergymen clearly state to the couples and the congregation at large that the church wedding is not recognised the way the traditional wedding is recognised by God. The church wedding is just an adopted culture from the white man's land.

But I like the church wedding...

To be honest, I love the vibes in a church wedding.

After the traditional marriage, my next option would be to go for a church wedding, and I already have grand scenarios in my head because that is going to be the big party day, as is commonly done in Nigeria.
A good part of my life has been spent in church settings, and I have seen how honourable the church wedding can be. You can't take anything away from that. Even though we know that the traditional marriage holds more value than the church wedding, the mere rating and reverence the church wedding gets—especially among Christians in Nigeria—is so high, even when we know the truth about it. It is usually regarded as the grand finale of the wedding events, where the big party is held with a lot of food, drinks, and loud music.

But regardless, if there’s only one option to choose, being an African man—regardless of my religious stance—I would choose traditional marriage over others.
If we're allowed to select two, then traditional marriage comes first, followed by the church wedding.

There’s always this admonition given to people who are about to get married, especially when they don't have enough finances. They are advised to do just the rightful one, which is the traditional marriage, and go ahead to live their lives. The other ones are just fulfilments of righteousness, which should only be done by those who want to, and there is no compulsory demand for them.

Thanks for reading.

This is my entry to Hive-reachout prompt of the week

Images used are mine

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