First of all a huge congratulations to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle for a smooth, simple and absolutely beautiful royal wedding. I mean, who ever knew a British prince will one day marry a simply African-American actress from California? But hey! Here are some lessons Cameroonians need to learn from #TheRoyalWedding2018.

Now, after spending close to four hours of my morning watching the #RoyalWedding2018 on television, I realized that there’s so much for me and my fellow country men to learn from such a gigantic yet easy and well planned Royal Wedding. Starting with the fact that, some of my people were just watching because that was the only thing trending across the world.

Now to our lessons.

1. Publicity

Despite the fact that it was a Royal wedding – the Royal Wedding of two super popular celebrities in the world –  the Royal Family still made sure massive publicity was done a month prior to the main event on May 19. Prince Harry is one of the most popular persons in the world, and his bride, Meghan Markle is a star in the popular sitcom, ‘Suits’, many would think media would just carry on with free ads. But nope! Every top media publication was visited by those incharge of communication to make sure the right information was sent out on the specific time. They respected the media (traditional or social media) But our event organizers here will want the media to run their ads for free and sometimes blame them for a bad event.

2. Dress Code

Cameroonians are known for not respecting dress codes to events even if organiser use an entire year in publicising their events. But at the Royal Wedding, every guest knew what was expected of them. We saw so many vintage and conservative looks, hats and dramatic fascinators on modern day celebrities at Prince Harry‘s wedding. Guests were well behaved and didn’t bother about distressed jeans or going all urban and contemporary. Why? Because they were attending a Royal Wedding and just knew they had a dress code to respect!

3. Timing

Heaven knows a typical wedding in Cameroon could go on for dayzzzzzzzzzzzzzz if not interrupted by hunger, thirst, toilet calls, weariness and/or frustrated faces! For what? I don’t know. Preachers here would use hours to give the wedding sermon saying the same message all over again – “let love lead”. Bishop Michael Curry used just 15-20 minutes to dish out one of the most powerful and most eccentric sermons Brits have ever witnessed in St. George’s Cathedral history and the entire wedding still ended in just about an hour. Besides the sermon, the guests, groom, bride and even the Queen were right on time! If the Queen can respect time, then who are you?

4. Offering and Communion

Please, correct me if I am wrong. I did not, I repeat, I did not, at any moment see an offering basket moving across the church for the collection of offering at the Royal Wedding. In fact, there was no moment when the congregation was asked to stand and come forward to drop a dime in an offering basket. Is it that our own churches back home are so dependent on the offerings to grow that offerings are being collected at people’s wedding services? It’s not as if the monies are being given to the newly wedded couple. Instead, the family pays the church to host their wedding and still have to handle the decor. Sometimes, there’s communion service attached to the proper wedding service just so people can give more offering. Jeez!

5. Simplicity

Gone are those Lady Diana days where things were been exaggerated at weddings. For example, super large wedding gowns, big bouquets of flowers, loud flashy interior decors, huge cakes etc. This Royal Wedding kept everything simple. Look at the bride. It was her big day… she was marrying a prince for God’s sake! Yet, she kept her wedding gown simple (designed by Givenchy), her make up natural, her bridal bouquet small and simple and restricted the colors to being mild yet elegant. Why do Cameroonians go foolishly big on their weddings and spend so much money, that they don’t have, sometimes?

6. Photography

Its true there were hundreds of photographers from different media houses, plus paparazzis at the Royal Wedding, to send out every second of the event to the world, but why do our own photographers have to wait for weeks to produce wedding pictures? Sometimes, the bride will have to fight brutally with the photographer to get the same pictures she paid for. Why? And even when the pics come, they are expected shots! Some of our wedding photogs lack creativity and cautiousness. Some would party so hard at your wedding instead of doing what they were paid to do. Then return with the worse catalog of photos you’ve ever seen. Why?

7. Who is your guest?

The whole world doesn’t have to be at your wedding. In Cameroon it’s all about friends, family and a large amount of acquaintances and enemies full at our weddings. I mean, the Royal Wedding 2018 had just 600 guests. Did you hear me? Given how popular and friendly the couple and the Royal Family is and the amount of friends they have around the world, that number is just too little but that was it. We need to learn to keep things simple and restricted so we give our guests the best times ever.

8. Keep it Memorable

Most of our weddings appear too common and full with repeated events. Why can’t we make our weddings an epitome for future references (This is not about too much spending). The Royal Wedding had too many talking points. For instance, the couple chose an African-America bishop to preach during the service. Then came an amazing all-black Kingdom Choir singing the hit song, “Stand By Me”. Then Meghan walks down the aisle with her father-in-law instead … I mean the wedding represented the couple especially the bride. In our own society, weddings most times depict the ideas of the parents instead of the couple or the bride.

A post shared by Eileen Glass (@lynglass) on May 19, 2018 at 7:47am PDT

Ms Karen Gibson and the Kingdom Choir were all absolutely fantastic! Great vocals by Paul Lee.