Zimbabwe: Wedding Interrupted After Groom’s Wife Shows Up At Ceremony

The wedding of a 42-year-old man and his bride was interrupted by another woman claiming to be the man’s wife after the pastor asked if anyone objected to their marriage. Ndodana Chifamba, 42, and his bride, known only as Phindile, were preparing to exchange vows at their wedding in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe when a woman swiftly got to her feet and announced she was married to the groom.
As other guests looked on baffled, Josephine Mhlanga, 46, then declared she had two children with her husband of 20 years – and had only found out about his secret wedding that day. She said her husband Chifamba could not marry again while she was still alive. Following the fiery revelation, the pastor stopped the ceremony and told the dejected groom and his lover – who apparently knew about his wife – that they could not sign the marriage certificate.

The Bulawayo Chronicle reports that the couple instead turned their wedding into an ordinary party. Mhlanga’s relatives reportedly informed her that her husband – whom she married in 1995 – was living a double life. It is understood the guilt-ridden relatives tipped her off about his planned wedding. “His relatives tipped me about the wedding’ just hours before it was supposed to take place.

 They said he had emphasised to them that I shouldn’t know about it,” she told the newspaper. Chifamba was reportedly living with his wife and children at the time of his affair with Phindile – but would go away from the family for days at a time. Surprisingly, he did not use his job as an alibi for his absence. “Whenever he visited, he would apologise for spending a lot of time without coming home,” Mhlanga said. She added that her husband would reassure her that his love for her is undying. Shockingly, Chifamba even slept next to Mhlanga the night before turning up to wed his new bride.

On the wedding day in the Parklands suburb, Mhlanga arrived unceremoniously and listened to the music of the Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services band, which the couple had hired. As the band performed a drum roll, the pastor then asked if anyone objected to the union. “Before the pastor could even say the person should speak or forever hold their peace, a hand shot up and Chifamba gasped in shock,” a witness at the wedding told the newspaper on Monday. They said the revelation was followed by ‘dead silence’. The pastor then asked those involved to discuss the matter behind closed doors, before the wedding was transformed into an ordinary party.