By Daniel Okezue
I asked her to go to the shopping mall with me. I had a little girl give her a fresh rose flower the moment we walked into the mall. Angela was so thrilled at the little girl’s generosity, coupled with the fact that her mum encouraged her to receive the flowers. There was a note inside the flower that she didn’t have to see yet. The flower was never too far from her nose because she loved the fragrance.
Walking further into the mall, I had arranged another little boy to write on the back of her left hand, ‘YOU’. She was so delighted at the love kids were showing her in the mall, but was a little surprised at why the boy who ran to her with such excitement would only write YOU on the back of her hand with a marker.
I had also arranged a shop to play me Banky W’s latest hit Yes/No while we walked to my primary destination in the mall. “Let’s do some jewellery window shopping,” I asked. We walked into the shop and I took her to the ring section and there was a banner hanging just in front of me with the inscription ‘marry’. I had to connect the dots, I asked her to look inside the flowers for a note which read ‘will’. She was still wondering what it meant when I removed my jacket and ‘ME’ was written on my white T-shirt. I asked her to connect them all.
The note in the flower read ‘WILL’ her hand read ‘YOU’, the inscription on the wall read ‘MARRY’ and my shirt read ‘ME’. I pulled a ring I’d paid for from the counter, went on my knees, and presented it to her.
With tears of joy she said YES in every language she understood. At this point, she couldn’t wait to update her pm and dp on bbm. My heart was still pounding; I had been thinking, “What if she had said no?” Well, like the popular TV series “Played by Fame”, I got everyone she met on our way into the mall to come in to the shop. There was excitement and love in the air.
Few minutes later, our phones started ringing. Everyone wanted to congratulate us.
The realities of a marital relationship started to set in. I started thinking for two knowing that I was now engaged. We had to give her church at least a six months notice before our wedding. We started to plan for the big day; we just wanted everything to be perfect. We contacted vendors to confirm prices and then we drew up our budget.
Our attention gradually moved from caring about each other to caring about the success of our wedding day. We disagreed on some things and then I knew that marriage was a lot of work. We had to submit our relationship to a couple we both respected for counsel. We had arguments at times but we never fought to win arguments because we both knew that we had a golden relationship to uphold instead.
With the big day here, it was with quick response that I said “Yes, I do. Let’s get this over with, I needed to take my wife out of here.”
At this point, I thought to myself that there were several processes in a wedding ceremony that should just be scrapped. But we had to patiently wait till the end of the service.
Anyway, all anxieties were gone. That beautiful moment when it hits you that “we are married now”… More than the Shakespeare love stories, we knew that forever began today and we walked out of the church hall with that excitement. The reception had started before we reached the venue. We were to dance in last after the chairman was called up to his seat.
I was overwhelmed by the love shown us by our friends and family during our wedding. The “paparazzi” were in full force as there were ‘phonographers’ everywhere taking picture of my wife and I. DPs were flying and we had lots of well wishers. The reception went on as normal until the MC announced something very surprising to both of us. It was a surprise gift as a friend of ours walked in to perform his hit single ‘Obimo’ it was Isaac Geralds. With joy and much excitement, we stepped out to dance with him. Isaac was on an international music tour and he had flown in from the States to grace our wedding. That was thoughtful of Him and it was dear to our hearts.
We had to let our guest go and it was with hearts full of gratitude to God and every one present that I thanked them for taking out time to attend our wedding. I’d planned to sneak out through the back door after my vote of thanks. Whew! Honeymoon calls. My wife and I disappeared immediately I dropped the mic. It’s been fun all the way and I bless God daily for giving me such a lovely wife.
