Bride in waiting is the diary of Noelyn Nassuuna who is engaged to be married in January 2023. In it, she describes her journey to the aisle, sharing the ups and downs, and the joys and frustrations of planning her wedding.
By Noelyn Nassuuna
Yay! We selected the day we are going to say “I do”, and now that it’s done, we have started planning for the big day.
The first thing that I thought of when I knew we were finally going to get married was where the wedding reception would take place. It was easy to figure out where the introduction ceremony will be as that will obviously be at my home.
For the reception however, we have to pick a venue that will give us our dream function. So my fiancé asked me what my preference was. In all honesty, I have always wanted my wedding to happen by a waterfall (but not by the beach). The only place that would give me that is Jinja, my favourite place in Uganda. Unfortunately, that was not an option because of the costs that come with transporting people and accommodating them.
So my next best choice was one that is elegant and cosy. My fiancé’s only request was for it to be in a hall because he doesn’t want the weather to be a problem for him.
When we looked at all the options, we knew a hall at a classy place aligned with both our dreams. We then listed the various hotels with halls and decided to visit each one of them so that we could make a more informed decision.
“Before going to these places Noelyn, we need to know the number of people we are inviting and the amount of money that we need to spend at the venue so we know what we are working with,” Henry told me. This made a lot of sense because most halls have a maximum capacity of occupancy. 
We settled on having 100 guests tops, so we needed a place that will make us and our guests feel very comfortable.”I know 100 is very small for both our circles but at the end of the day, we want to keep it simple and very beautiful. Many people make events too crowded,” Henry told me.
I know in Uganda, 100 guests for a wedding seems small. When we informed our relatives about the number of people we plan on inviting, some were okay with it because they don’t think it is necessary to spend too much.
“I support it. It doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of money on a wedding. There is life after the wedding,” my mother said.
However, my sister who got married last year was against it because she believes in large numbers. What would you expect from someone who had over 200 guests at her wedding!
“People will contribute to your wedding and you won’t have an option of not inviting them. The only way to maintain 100 guests is by doing away with meetings and fully funding your wedding,” she cautioned. We however decided to stick to the 100 guests because the fewer the guests, the cheaper it is for us too.
We checked out about five venues including Serena Kigo, Golf Course Hotel, Aquarius Kigo, Protea Kampala, and Golden Tulip. We then settled for Aquarius Kigo, which is located along Lweza-Kigo Road off Entebbe road because the hall was big enough to accommodate our guests and it has a cool and very intimate atmosphere. The wedding packages there were also very affordable. We didn’t like the other places because they had small halls and most were in the middle of town which is rather chaotic.
Considering that most of our guests will be coming from within the town, Aquarius Kigo is also very strategically located; only an invited guest will to come to the wedding. I once attended a wedding at Protea Kampala that had over 20 uninvited guests. I was on the organising committee and we had to look for Shs1m to cater for the extra plates of food. I do not want such drama at our wedding.
“With the location of Aquarius, I don’t think we will have so many uninvited people,” I told Henry.
With the wedding date and venue set, now we need to do the real work on what we want the day to look like.
