Wedding News

Sylvester Asoya

Provocative wedding gowns draw the ire of the church
One Saturday morning last year, a crowd gathered at St.

Agnes Catholic Church, Maryland, Lagos, for a wedding ceremony. Delighted by the day's event, the bride strutted to the altar in a daring wedding gown with a plunging neckline, offering an ample view of her cleavage.

But her joy soon evaporated. The officiating priest, Reverend Father Raphael Uzokwu, ordered her to go back home and change into a less daring dress or risk the cancellation of the ceremony. The minister's threat turned her freshly made-up face into a teary mess.

The bridal train and the guests were also thrown into confusion. They pleaded with the priest to rescind his decision, but he ignored them. He later did when a bride's maid offered a shawl to keep the heaving cleavage out of sight.

Incidents like this are becoming common as the Church moves to curb indecent dressing at weddings. For many of today's brides, revealing wedding gowns, mirroring the general bare-it-all fashion craze, are the rage. Wedding dressmakers are innundated by requests from brides to show them as trendy or chic. According to The NEWS' investigations, prospective brides see the wedding day as their last opportunity to be girls before they are chained by the restrictions of matrimony. Wedding gowns are therefore seen as a medium to express this.

However, the Church is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the trend, speaking and acting against it.

Last week, Reverend Father Gabriel Osu, Director of Social Communications of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos, confirmed this to TheNEWS. "I have had cause to personally question people and to tell one or two brides to go back or please cover up. This is not proper," Osu said. He expressed concern that the 'offending' dresses are worn with the consent of the grooms. On a few occasions, Osu said, he saw grooms say: " We can't marry twice. It is only once. Please grant her request. I'm okay, anything goes." Osu explained that intending couples are taught to know what a proper wedding gown is as part of the Catholic Church's six-month marriage programme. "Your wedding gown which ordinarily should not even be an issue, always comes up," Osu said.

But a young man who preferred anonymity asked: "Do you expect a modern woman to wear just any dress on the most important day of her life? The days of our mothers are gone." But the Catholic Church seems liberal when compared with other denominations. TheNEWS gathered that some other churches go beyond reprimand and the use of shawls for revealing dresses. At the Archbishop Vining Anglican Church in Lagos, TheNEWS learnt, prospective couples are advised to bring their gowns for screening weeks before the wedding day. Gowns which fall short of the church's standards are rejected. Brides who defy this are not allowed to wear such gowns, but are made to hire one from the church- at a cost. The situation is also the same in the Christ Apostolic Church, Redeemed Christian Church of God, Foursquare Gospel Church and many other Pentecostal churches. However, some new generation churches are indifferent to revealing dresses, some of which are worn to their Sunday services.

But the church's position is not shared by wedding dressmakers who see such revealing gowns as a reflection of the prevailing fashion trend.

Reverend Kelvin Tope-Tapere of the Anglican Diocese of Lagos West, disagrees. "The designers of these clothes, the brides and the manufacturers of nudity are taking advantage of the fact that men are visually aroused. So ladies feel that they stand to attract more attention when they expose sensitive parts of their bodies. It does not matter whether you're a pastor or not. We didn't just get into this situation by accident. Nudity is all over the place and it is a tool for the devil," he said.

He also argued that brides who choose revealing dresses are victims of dressmakers' aggressive marketing drive.

However, a married female journalist believes that the trend is temporary. "The development is basically fashion and it is a result of peer pressures. Those involved in it have no reason for exposing their bodies. Their only reason is: that person did it, why can't I look like her? If I don't look that way, they will think I'm old fashioned," she told TheNEWS.

There is no hint yet that the church is winning the duel.

Last July's wedding of Nwankwo Kanu, the Super Eagles striker, is a testimony that the duel is far from over.

Amarachi, the footballer's bride, came to the church in a strapless gown which revealed a part of her cleavage. The footballer and his brother, who was the bestman, also came with their hair plaited.