The wedding day is arguably the most anticipated event day in the life of a couple, but for President Uhuru Kenyatta's first cousin, Beth Mugo, the day, 61 years ago, involved navigating legal bureaucracy after the arrest of her then-fiancé.
While celebrating her 80th birthday, a feat she attained in July, at her Kitisuru home in Nairobi on Friday, September 13, Mugo recounted how her then-fiancé was arrested on the eve of their wedding, sending the wedding plans into disarray.
This was until her father, James Muigai, who served as the Gatundu Divisional Officer under the colonial administration in the late 50s, intervened.
The former Dagoretti MP also revealed that due to financial difficulties, she and her husband, Nicholas Mugo, did not go for a honeymoon.
"In fact on the eve of the wedding, Nick was arrested because it was the times of a colonial State of Emergency. It took the intervention of my dad who was a D.O in Gatundu to have him released for the occasion," recounted Beth.
During the celebration which also marked their 61st marriage anniversary, the couple rekindled their romance by reading a poem from the service booklet.
"Sometimes, I know I have behaved stupidly, let me acknowledge, you have forgiven me happily. On such occasions, I have more understood that together, we are meant to overcome our stupidity. For indeed, you are the bone of my bone," read a section of the poem.
Beth added that her marriage was more important to her than her political life and at one point, during her campaign in 1992, told voters, "If you are deciding to give me your vote, decide quickly because it is almost six and I want to go home and cook for my husband."
"My public life has never kept me from being a wife and a mother. In fact, I know I'm a wife first, then a mother and them the public life," she went on.
Various high profile guests including Senate Speaker Ken Lusaka attended the event.
