RALPH WENGE, CNN ANCHOR: The wedding ceremony is as varied as the different cultures that practice it. It has changed and evolved over the years.</s>ASIEH NAMDAR: And in many ways and place, it's still changing. In Ghana, religion is playing a bigger role in where people are having their weddings. More from the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.</s>EMMA APENTENG, GBC CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Before the mushrooming of churches in Ghana, church weddings were seen as a preserve of the elite and affluent in society; but with an increase in large congregations in churches, people who under normal circumstances would not have done a church wedding, are now getting married in the church, even though most Ghanaians see this type of wedding as an invitation of Western culture. Members of these penecoastal (ph) churches see it as a requirement demanded by their church; and others also see it as a fulfillment of God's wed. Some churches in recent times has organized mass weddings to enable people from various social classes to bring their marriages before God. This type of wedding allows members to wear whatever outfit they can afford in order to cut down costs. This group are those church members who have been married traditionally, but who have not yet brought their marriages before God. To these churches, a wedding in church makes a marriage complete in the eyes of God. Bernard Arday Acquah, a marriage counselor, has this to say:</s>BERNARD ARDAY ACQUAH, PASTOR: The traditional right is marriage; because of modernization, people are moving out from the traditional into the church-type of marriage which includes the audience marriage. It's potentially polygamous. when you come into the church, you come in as an ordinance,</s>APENTENG: Cost and constraints notwithstanding, Ghanaian women now prefer to married in church, because, to them, this is the only way to prevent their husbands from being polygamous. From Ghana Television, Emma Apenteng, reporting for CNN World Report.
Ghana Features More In-Church Wedding Ceremonies