Destination Wedding Blues - Day 1: Dance, decor, food, et al

I had intended to go to Gambia two days before everyone would come to join me so

• I could meet with the vendors
• Run through the whole wedding arrangement with the hotel's management
• Arrange airport pickup for our guests
• Get guests' rooms ready, and put their welcome packs on their beds.

Thanks to Arik, not only did I not get to the venue two days before the wedding retreat, I got there one day after the wedding should have started, so we lost a whole day's activities.

For one reason or the other, we had not concluded on decor, DJ, and makeup artist. The hotel's management was acting as a go between to get all these sorted, but we still had to make sure they delivered what we wanted.

In the plane... enroute Gambia

Most of these passengers were our guests

Finally, we arrived out our hotel. What a lovely view

The first day of the wedding, which ideally should have been the second one was for the wedding dance choreography, and the wedding rehearsal dinner.

But first, we had breakfast. Senegambia Beach Hotel, our wedding retreat host, has one of the best breakfast arrangement ever, a buffet where you can get almost everything you'd ever want in breakfast.

Typical breakfast collection

Arriving for breakfast... pretty late

Groom... arriving for breakfast

Me, Omozo of O'naturals and Orode... Friends forever

Then choregraphy began afterwards. Everyone turned up, and it was so much fun.

You can watch a clip of the rehearsal below.

Dance Rehearsals @iamitom & @drfoy leading the lot. #xoxoGambia #tilogey2016 #destination #wedding #banjul

A video posted by emekaogey (@emekaogey) on Dec 16, 2016 at 12:41pm PST

By the time we were done, we were fully ready for the dance the next day. The decorator was already waiting for me, so I left, and arranged with him, based on the materials he had available (which was not very much, cos they are not very advanced in decor). We had to go to the venue and started analysing and discussing, which was extremely tiring, but my friend Dolapo, did all the coordination.

We rested a bit, and then it was time for wedding rehearsl dinner, which practically had no dinner. We talked about the wedding procession and played games. And then, people gave speeches to the couple, and I talked about both mothers. The groom took over, gave a toast to me, thanked and prayed for people. By the time he was done, people had tears in their eyes (He has that effect with talking). I don't yet have pictures from that session.

After the session, we had to go and rest, and get ready for the wedding ceremony, which was the next evening.