WINE CHIC(K)
TEXT
ANNABEL ONYANGO
CHABLIS,
I DO!
As Annabel Onyango plans her perfect wedding, she ponders
over the question that is grossly and universally underestimated
by brides-to-be across the land: what wine will be served?
T
alk to any unmarried girl
over the age of 30 and
she’ll have a pretty good
idea what her wedding day
will look like. Really, ask
one. Single women of a particular
age have had the benefit of time (at
least a decade) to mull over a million
bridal ideas, do creative calculations,
work out financial algorithms and run
at least a dozen Google searches on
“bridal footwear”. At this point, they
also have (after a decade of working
for their own coins) enough maturity
to have ‘realistic’ expectations. Plus
they’ve sat through enough cheesy
weddings to have a crystal clear idea
of what they definitely don’t want.
What you may be surprised to
30.
know is that when it comes to the
possibility of our own weddings,
most of us unmarried spinsters aren’t
yet jaded. Something in our XX DNA
still makes us want all the bells and
whistles of a big, traditional, white
wedding. The fairytale lives strong
in our imaginations. The dream stays
alive. So when the right boy finally
comes along and puts a ring on it,
we’re ready!
In the case of my particular wedding-to-be, aesthetics are everything.
My special day will be full of only
pretty things, pretty people in pretty
clothes, and pretty things to eat
and drink. A folder on my desktop
creatively titled “Wedding Folder” is
updated on a bi-hourly basis and is
the foundation on which my bridal
blueprint lies. If my computer crashes, I’ll have to cancel everything.
Having never been a foodie my
entire life, my reception dinner menu
has now become the focus of all my
waking hours. What hors d’oeuvres
to serve with cocktails? How to dress
the cater-waiters? What of the live
cooking stations, how many will
there be? But those are obvious. The
question that is grossly and universally underestimated by brides-to-be
across the land is: What wine will be
served?
A couple’s taste in wine is tested
on their wedding day. You want to
give your guests something refined
but universal, something that goes
well with meat, chicken or fish. There
has to be something red AND white
- not too sweet and not too dry. Plus
you’ll be paying for all of it, so...
My groom and I will be drinking
copious amounts of wine between
now and our I do’s, in a finite quest
to find those perfect bottles to serve
our people. Not that that will be
different from any other day, but at
least now it’ll have a constructive
purpose. You are invited to share a
glass with us.
Annabel Onyango is an awardwinning Fashion Stylist in Africa.
She’s also a tv personality, social
influencer, and taste-maker. Style is
her do and end all.