Ole Time Wedding
Tobago Heritage Festival

Except for the carnival at the end of the Tobago Heritage Festival, the most colorful and largest gathering takes place in the town of Moriah and its popular Ole Time Wedding.

The costumes are a throwback to a much earlier time. The men wear black stovepipe hats, black and white three-piece suits, bow ties, white gloves and carry an umbrella to shade their female partners.

The women are just as gussied up in bustle dresses, wide-brimmed hats with flowers and as much jewelry as they can wear. This event is designed to show the European influences on Tobaqonians.

It's a light-hearted event as the bride and groom are heckled throughout the ceremony, sometimes by a pregnant ex-girlfriend and sometimes by the jilted girl's whole family.

Despite the interruptions the couple always gets wedded and afterwards everyone files out of the church to “walk in de wedding” by dancing the “Brush Back” in the streets to the sounds of fiddles and tambrins.

Food, speeches, dancing and other cultural entertainment at the wedding reception help round out the afternoon.

Spectators and their cameras are welcome everywhere. In fact, it wouldn't be considered much of a party unless they showed up, as hundreds of them always do.

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