Her Married Now Momma

Over the Labor Day weekend, my best friend, road dog, & ace boom cool Cousin Dee got married to her long time boo Mato Allen (you know him as the “Yellow African”).

The wedding was months in the making & of course, I was slated to be the photographer to capture their special day in only a way that I can.

I would be lying if I said this was an easy wedding to work because it wasn’t! 1st of all there were 325 guests, we had 3 stops for post wedding/pre reception on location photos & African traditions that I was not accustomed to but had to capture. There was almost too any things going on for me to keep my mind right, so I’m very happy that I hired an assistant to help me keep it all together.

I tell you, it was a long 12 hour day but it was all worth it for my cousin.

Earlier this week, I joked that I had to watch “Coming to America” to get me prepared for this wedding & that was quite funny but it was so true. Mato’s family hails from Sierra Leone & they were thick up in that piece. My family & Verlisa’s friends probably made up 15-20% of the quests with everyone else from Mato’s side.

And let me tell you, they were sharb! Sharb as hell! Afro sharb! Yes I did say Sharbbbbbb. Very colorful dashikis, agbadas, head wraps, dresses & everything in between.

Knowing what to expect in terms of dress, I made it a point to find the sharbest agbada that I could & I got lucky at the last minute with a piece straight from Nigeria. Later in the evening, Cousin Dee joked that it was the 1st time that my African clothes actually fit in anywhere. I couldn’t do anything but laugh because she was so right.

Anyway, there are some other things I want to discuss about the wedding & the interaction of the cultures but now is not the time. I think I’m going to do a vlog about it after discussing it with a few of my friends about the stark cultural differences that I noticed.

Oh wait, here’s a link to a few preview photos from the big day.