The White Wedding in Ghana: Wedding Professionals in Perspective

Abstract

Marriage studies offer considerable insight into understanding African societies. Several scholars have written on the traditional marriage ceremonies of the various African societies. However, this scholarly interest in marriage has not been reflected in the contemporary marriage ceremony popularly known as the “white wedding”. In this work, I posit that there is a depth of knowledge to be got from focusing academic attention on the white weddings, and particularly on the wedding professionals whose festal services are highly sought after in today’s society. I focus on their works and the functions they perform in the marriage process, analyse their general activities vis-à-vis the concepts of westernisation, modernisation, globalisation and glocalisation, and also look for nuanced gender issues. Through a series of cyberethnographic study and content analysis of other media documents, participant observation and interviews, I gather data and do a thematic analysis under blurring gender lines (particularly with regard to relationships, men and women’s works and exploring sexualities), functions of wedding professionals, adapting the global in the local- exchanging culture and showing social presence, and the future of weddings and further implications. I find that there are visible shifts in socio-cultural expectations of the services rendered towards the success of today’s marriage ceremonies, and the changes are a continuous process that need further research data to understand contemporary Ghana vis-a-vis the institution of marriage.