Ama & Kwame

Ama and Kwame chose to hold their Knocking Ceremony on a Thursday, the day of the week sacred to the Akan deity Nyame, the Supreme Being. It was a deliberate choice: Kwame's family are custodians of a shrine in the Ashanti Region, and the decision to align the ceremony with the traditional calendar was a statement about what kind of wedding this would be. It would be a ceremony that honoured the ancestors and the living with equal seriousness.

The Okyeame who represented Kwame's family at the Knocking Ceremony had been in the role for twenty-two years. His formal speech, delivered in classical Twi and embroidered with proverbs, lasted forty minutes and drew sustained response from both families: laughter at the right moments, silence at the right moments, the murmured assent of people who recognised the weight of what was being said. When he finished, Ama's father stood, and responded in kind.

The kente worn by the couple was commissioned from a master weaver in Bonwire. Kwame's had been ordered two years in advance; Ama's was a surprise gift from Kwame's mother, delivered on the morning of the ceremony. The pattern she had chosen (Osram ne Nsoromma, the moon and the star) is the Akan symbol for the bonding of husband and wife. Ama wore it and said nothing. She did not need to.