This should relieve some stress.

After attending an Oroko traditional wedding this weekend, I have
great ideas for wedding planning. Forget the six months of
hectic organisational details. Here's what we could do.

First, we would invite all of our family and friends-- and expect
a goodly amount of people from Fowler, particularly those who
live on our street, to show up without a formal invitation.
After all, when there's free food...

Then we would wait for all the important people to arrive. Some
of them might be delayed by rain and muddy roads. Maybe even Jim
and his family. After all, you know those roads from Thousand
Oaks to Fowler... they need to get a road crew out to grade them
again after rainy season. --No matter. The guests will all wait
around for six hours, right? No problem.

At about eleven o'clock (that's pm), we would finally be able to
start the ceremony. My dad would make an announcement that all
these strangers are here in his house, but he doesn't know why
they've come, and wishes they would tell him after he's given
them something to eat.

So a hearty meal, which would have been prepared by me and all my
female relatives that day, would be served to our two families
and my parents' high school classmates (the closest equivalent to
an Oroko 'age group'!). Then, when they had eaten well, someone
from Jim's family would make an elaborate speech about how they
heard that it's a good idea to marry women from Fowler. Then Jim
would say that he had seen "a small fowl" in my father's house
that he thought he liked. (No intentional pun there between the
name of our town and the 'small fowl.' However, knowing my
family, SOMEONE would make it into a quite intentional pun.)

My parents would bring out my unmarried sisters, one at a time,
veiled. "This one? Is this the fowl you saw?"

Upon receiving the negative, they would finally bring me out with
the same veil. As soon as Jim's family had officially confirmed
that yes, this was the correct fowl, the families would need to
go someplace private to negotiate the brideprice, or better
named, marriage gift. (Sorry, Jim. No dowry. How many goats do
you have? Maybe my dad will accept a '67 Chevy instead.)
Someone from the family then would inevitably quote the proverb
that
"the marriage gift never ends."

When the family members filed back in, they would announce that
an agreement had been reached that was satisfactory to everyone.
Then the speeches, advice-giving, and
sitting-and-waiting-for-something-to-happen could begin.

After three hours (did you think you were going to get to sleep
tonight? This is a wedding!!) everyone would get to start
dancing. Guests would be free to come and go, but none of the
bride and groom's family would get much sleep.

The next morning, rather late (weddings last only one day? what
culture are you from?) Jim and I and a few people would go to the
courthouse for our civil wedding. Upon our return, the party
would continue. I and all of my female relatives would prepare
another, even bigger, meal, and everyone would eat their fill.
More speeches, more dancing, and lots of gift giving. Around
five o'clock, people would start to filter away, and then
everyone would realise that the Africa Cup was in progress and
they were about to miss a football match... and the wedding would
be over. The chairs would stick around for at least a week,
though.

So, what do you think, Jim? :-)