Exclusive: Bozoma Saint John-Watson’s Kente Wedding Looks Honored Ghanaian Culture And Craftsmanship

Your wedding is an important opportunity to showcase your values. TV personality Bozoma Saint John-Watson wore hers with pride for her Ghanaian wedding ceremony, which took place on August 21 in Accra, Ghana. The 49-year-old married her longtime love, Keely Watson, in front of 1,000 friends and family in the West African country. Their Ghanaian regalia was a focal point. This was by design. The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star and Marketing Hall of Fame inductee wanted to use her big day to showcase Ghanaian culture and fashion—two things dear to her heart.

“It was really important to me because I don’t want our only standard, especially as Black people, to be centered on whiteness,” she tells ESSENCE. She is renowned for her bold style, which commands attention in every room she enters.

“I said it in one of the many captions from my long, long, long list of content that I did for the wedding. Long before the ships and the division and the chains and we were scattered across the diaspora, we had a history which still exists, that should leave us in awe.”

We were indeed in awe after seeing Bozoma’s wedding look, which oozed tradition from head to toe. Also known as Bozoma Afiba Mamekyi Arthur Saint John-Watson, the entrepreneur hails from Ghanaian royalty, on both sides of her family, and showed up as such on her special day. She wore a tekua, a traditional, spiraling crown-like hairstyle worn by indigenous Fante women of the Akan ethnic group in southwestern Ghana.

As for the threads, her Kente, a hand-woven textile created by the Asante and Ewe people of Ghana, was also the star of the show, bursting with vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows. It took four months to make.

She chose to have a kente wedding, which is a step up from a traditional Ghanaian wedding. With the latter, only the bride’s parents wear kente cloth, but the former takes it up a notch.

“Having a kente wedding means that every single guest must also show up in kente, which just ratchets up the luxury and seriousness of it all,” she explains.

The happy couple and bozoma’s daughter Lael. Focus And Blur @focusandblur

The TV star says guests couldn’t wear just any kente, though. It had to be authentic—woven in Bonwire, a small Ashanti village that birthed kente in the 17th century, where it is still woven on looms today.

The layers of gold adorning the couple’s traditional wear are another cultural focal point, given that Ghana was known as the Land of Gold during the Middle Ages.

Moving on to her feet, she wore Ahenema, a traditional, royal leather slipper from Ghana that symbolizes heritage and high status. Seeing all of the pieces of her traditional look come together was a sacred and emotional moment for Boz.

“At the end, when they turned me around, and I’m over here waddling over to the mirror ’cause it was so heavy, I burst into tears seeing myself dressed as a traditional Ghanaian bride,” she says.

It’s not a wedding if there aren’t multiple looks—the new bride’s after-party dresses were a sight to see and maintained her traditional values. The first reception dress was a masterpiece created by Accra-based designer Mimmy Yeboah. It was a mixture of kente, beads, and undeniable skill, taking 300 hours to create.

She also rocked custom kente heels by Christian Louboutin.

“When I opened up the box and saw the kente mules with the red Swarovski crystal-studded sole, I was in tears,” she recalls. It’s just been a beautiful collection of intentionality.”

The third dress was a multi-colored hand-beaded mini dress made by designer Kenneth Tetteh.

Ultimately, Saint John-Watson wanted to convey through her wedding that fashion doesn’t have to be Eurocentric, which means you don’t need to wear a traditional white gown to feel like a bride.

“When we think of ourselves as beautiful, it doesn’t have to be with the white veil. You can be colorful and golden and loud; you can be a maximalist in every sense of the word, and that’s natural to us. It’s embedded in our culture.”

Take a look at her stunning looks below in this week’s Bridal Bliss.

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