You’re at your desk, minding your own business. Then, your phone buzzes. You check your WhatsApp and there it is—a fancy digital invitation card with roses, fonts doing gymnastics, and piano music in the background.
“Dear friends, with great joy, we invite you to celebrate our love…”
You open the PDF. It’s giving Munyonyo vibes. You can smell the lake breeze through the screen. It’s giving saxophonist at sunset. It’s giving drone footage, fairy lights, champagne towers, and printed six-foot portraits of the couple in kanzu and gomesi.
You scroll down the invite, and boom—there it is in bold red letters: “STRICTLY BY CARD. GIFTS IN FORM OF ENVELOPES ARE WELCOME.” That’s when your pulse starts to race a little. Because now, the real wedding has begun. Not the one with cake and speeches. No, this one starts with your wallet.
You quickly check your bank balance. Shs87,000. Airtel Money: 11k. Rent? Due next week. And you? You are the groom’s cousin. You cannot just pretend you didn’t see the invitation. Your name is printed on the guest list. The family group chat already tagged you under “confirmed attendees.” There’s no hiding.
Now you sit on your bed, calculator in hand, wondering: if I go with 50k in the envelope, will people think I’m struggling? If I top it up to 200k, will I survive the rest of the month?
Because in this country, even if you haven’t paid your Yaka units, you’re expected to "show face" with a thick envelope at the reception—just so people can say, “the big shot has roared.”
Welcome to Uganda, where sometimes, the appearance of wealth matters more than actual wealth. We’ve become so good at acting rich, we could start our own version of Netflix.
We live in a society where a boda rider can attend his cousin’s introduction deep in Iganga and arrive with an envelope thicker than his entire monthly savings. Why? Because there’s pressure to represent. Because someone back in the village is watching. Because the whispers start as soon as you leave the tent. “Oyo abeela mu Kampala naye envelope ye ewewukka; roughly translated: “That one lives in Kampala, but their envelope was embarrassingly light.””
Weddings, introductions, baby showers—they’ve stopped being celebrations and turned into theatre. You don’t just attend. You perform. And the performance is expensive.
Let’s be honest—some of us are financially exhausted. Every December, the weddings line up like buses at the Namayiba terminal. This one in Munyonyo. That one in Entebbe. Another in Mbarara.
You attend all with a smile, a new outfit, and an envelope. Come January, you’re broke, eating posho and salt, dodging the landlord like a character in a Nigerian movie. You gave 150k at a wedding, but now you’re begging the boda guy to let you pay 3k later.
Nobody remembers your envelope when the bride and groom are on honeymoon in Dubai. Nobody claps for your financial sacrifices. They just move on, while you’re left trying to recover from the generosity fever that gripped you at the reception.
And this isn't just about money—it’s about the mental burden. Social media has added more fuel to this fire. You log onto Instagram and see someone dancing with a saxophonist on a flowered walkway.
The couple is smiling under fireworks, a drone doing rounds above their heads like a guardian angel. Now you, in your rented bedsitter in Najjera, begin questioning your whole life. “Am I the only one not making it in life? Why is everyone’s wedding like a music video, and mine will be at the community hall with plastic chairs?”
But not everyone is lost in the show. There’s a silent group of Ugandans—humble, grounded, focused—who attend weddings with small, honest envelopes. They show up, clap, dance, take sodas to aunties, and leave early to catch the last taxi. They don’t appear in wedding photos.
Nobody thanks them in speeches. But they are the real MVPs. They are quietly building their lives. Paying off plots in Matugga. Growing chicken in Gomba. Going back to school in the evening. Saving in SACCOs. Investing in dignity.
They may not be trending on TikTok or posing next to wedding cakes, but these people sleep with peace in their hearts. They are not trying to impress anyone. They are too busy becoming someone.
Now, if we’re going to move forward as a people, we need to start telling ourselves the truth. This pressure to show off is costing us everything—our peace, our progress, even our savings.
Let’s stop pretending that people will remember your envelope two weeks after the wedding. They won’t. Let’s stop dressing to compete and start living within our means. You do not need a new gomesi for every introduction. Re-wear it. Your ancestors won’t disown you.
And to you, the couple—yes, you tying the knot this Saturday in Munyonyo—be realistic. You are not getting married to impress Kampala. You are not doing this to trend. You are doing this to build a life. A life that will still need money after the cake has been eaten.
Don’t plan an 80-million-shilling wedding hoping envelopes will return the investment. They won’t. A wedding is not a business—it’s a celebration.
Cut your guest list. If your workplace group chat is 46 people, don’t invite all of them. Be wise. Invite people who matter. Feed those who will pray for your marriage, not those who came for buffet and gossip. If someone shows up with 30k, accept it with love. Maybe that’s all they had, and they chose to give it to you.
And to the rest of us: let’s stop the madness. Let’s stop forcing ourselves into performances we can’t afford. If you’re broke, it’s okay to skip a wedding. Wish them well and move on. Let people know your absence doesn’t mean disrespect—it just means you’re living within your reality.
In the end, what truly matters is that we celebrate each other with honesty. That we show up—if we can—with joy and peace, not with fear and pressure. You are not your envelope. You are your presence. Your energy. Your laughter on the dance floor. Your help carrying crates for the aunties. That’s what the couple will remember—not the figure you squeezed into a white card.
So next time that Munyonyo invite lands in your inbox, and your bank balance is mocking you, just breathe. Put on what you have. Go with what you can afford. Smile. Dance. Eat. And if someone asks why your envelope wasn’t fat, just smile and say, “Because my rent deadline is knocking like a Katikkiro at my gate."
Mr Jonan Kandwanaho is the President the Money Lenders Association of Uganda