For example they would have: the bride’s family, the groom’s family, the bride’s close friends, the groom’s close friends, the bride’s church friends, the groom’s church friends, the bride’s school mates, the groom’s school mates, the bride’s extended family, the groom’s extended family, anyone that thinks the bride looks beautiful today, anyone that thinks they are a good dancer, anyone that wants to show off their dress today, anyone that is feeling extra rich... As you can see, this makes for a lot of people having to go up a lot of different times to throw money at the bride and groom, which essentially turns into a really big fundraiser for the couple. It is also an opportunity for people to give a subtle brag to the rest of how rich they are based on how many times they go up! (Though this is more subtle)
Through it all there is the DJ playing really loud music that is not really romantic at all, but more party-like and upbeat to encourage people to donate more. Kid you not, this went on for about 2 hours of the MC hyping people to come up and give the couple money! If you ever go to a Malawian wedding, you have to remember to go to the bank and switch your currency into 20 or 50 MWK bills (which are like pocket change) so that you can throw money when you come up each of the different times and not empty your entire bank account! Doing this allowed me to get 100-200 bills that made a wad of cash that I could use for the Pelekani and only equating to about 5,000 MWK.
Now, you might think that now with people having given gifts and now money, that that is sufficient giving for one wedding. Well if you did, you are mistaken.
