A Togolese Wedding

This week I attended my first Togolese wedding. It was a 2-day event but I was only able to attend the first part of it, since I had to leave town during the second day's festivities. The first day's event consisted of a large group of women walking together to meet the bride and greet her and then a smaller group of women, consisting of the groom's close friends and colleagues, heading to a local "buvette" (sort of like a bar but where you can also buy soda, and in my Muslim town it's mostly the latter) to have a soda and hang out with the groom. The groom is Francais, an employee of the NGO I work with, ADIFF. He's the man in the background of the first photo, sitting next to the guy in the maroon outfit. One of the traditions here is apparently that all of the marrying couple's close friends buy the same fabric and get outfits made out of it -- tho fortunately I found out too late about this custom and was spared having to get the dreaded wedding outfit you never wear again (It's very bright green!). Instead I had an outfit made known as a "complet," a matching skirt and top made out of the same fabric, which is traditional everyday and dressy clothing here. Mine ended up a little big -- despite pressing the tailor to make it more form-fitting, it still ended up a touch baggy -- but it turned out better than I hoped. You can see it in the picture below, which includes my sitemate Rebecca (an information technology volunteer also posted in Sokode), who did get the traditional wedding outfit made...