The plans of Miles Sampa, the Mayor of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, to hold his wedding in a 10,000-seater stadium has been left in tatters after authorities restricted the number of attendees to only 300 to adhere to Covid-19 regulations.
Sampa and his fiancee, Nchimunya, are set to wed on December 26 at Woodlands Stadium.
The mayor had initially sent out an open invitation to Zambians for the wedding.
Reacting to the directive, Sampa said he had no choice but to comply with the ministry of health’s Covid-19 guidelines but said the restrictions had put him in a dilemma about who to invite.
He said, “Our line up already has 50 people, when I add artists, security and support staff to the list, we are already towards 200 people. So who to invite and not invite was the headache I was trying to avoid.”
He said he did not want to invite “ordinary Lusaka residents” anymore to avoid accusations of favouritism, but he will award television rights to an unnamed local station.
Local companies and well wishers have been contributing to pay for the event which some have dubbed the “wedding of the year”.
But Sampa has said that the money donated will be used to pay for the Woodlands stadium venue.
He also said that donated foodstuffs will be given to Lusaka residents even if it means sending “packed lunch boxes to their homes”.