Editor,

Allow me to react to the article, "Lavish weddings: Are they the beginning of ‘until poverty do us apart’ vows?” (The New Times, May 29).

Marriage in Rwanda has become a competition, to the extent that some friends don’t go to your wedding to celebrate the day but to look at what you have done better or what they should do better to have a better wedding. This is ridiculous!

At the end of the day, if you marry for the wrong reasons, it will never work. I don’t know why people cannot learn from past events; I believe they keep telling themselves, "I am different and that can’t happen to me” until it does.

Like someone quoted in the article, I would also rather save money and call people for the wedding but not relying on other people’s pockets to make the most important day in my life beautiful.

Why do you have to rely on someone to make your life what it should be? Where is that "Agaciro” that’s on everyone’s lips? Some blindly join in the chorus not knowing what it means thinking it is merely not accepting foreign aid—sorry, it goes much deeper than that.

I can talk about this all day but the clever person or reasonable person will get what I mean. Agaciro should encompass everything—even the way we prepare weddings.

Pierre Ngabo

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It’s totally pathetic to spend ten million francs in three hours; that is from 2pm in church to 6pm at the reception.

Imagine if you spend that fortune to purchase a piece of land and take a mortgage to give your family a decent home.

I know a wedding should be a happy and fun moment to leave everlasting memories, but think twice about the budget. Close your eyes for once and see the day after that wedding, when you and your spouse have hit the road with empty bank accounts, and then a baby kicks in.

I urge people to seriously reconsider the whole idea of lavish weddings.

Richard Niwenshuti