Bien recalls when he first met wife Chiki, explains reason for private wedding

By Diana Anyango | 4yrs ago | 3 min read

**Bien Baraza and his wife Chiki Kuruka [Photo: Elvis Ogina]**

Sauti Sol vocalist Bien-Aime Baraza and his newlywed wife Chiki Kuruka have been giving netizens serious couple goals with their undeniable chemistry. How did they get so lucky?

Recalling their first encounter during an interview on Kiss100, Bien remembers every detail as if it was yesterday.

“We met in the car park at the Talib Kweli concert. That was on the 23rd of October at Ebony Lounge, Westlands. If you do the math, we have dated for 5 years going on 6,” said Bien.

According to Chiki, the two were introduced to each other by fashion designer Emmanuel Jambo and had dated for close to a year before going public with their relationship.

"We dated for a whole year before we decided to go public about our love affair. The only reason we decided to go public was for people to see that what we have is real. We did not want to go into stories of cheating, neither did we want to let people start suggesting that either of us had gotten a ‘sponsor’.

Proposal, private wedding

For the breathtaking proposal, Bien hired out an entire cinema, at Westgate Mall and went down on one knee for Chiki’s hand in marriage in front of her closest friends and family.

“I was not expecting this at all! Hiring out a cinema, all my family and friends involved. Thank you, thank you. Easiest yes I’ve ever said. To my homie, my best friend and sh** my fiancé, I love you,” wrote an excited Chiki

Because everything else was public about them, Bien and Chiki opted to make their wedding private and special with only their closest friends and family in the loop.

Bien explains that their decision helped them cut costs and most importantly wade off negative energy.

“Since our life was in the public, we took our wedding very seriously. It wasn’t something for the gram it was for the two of us. As soon as it goes to the gram you have to deal with so much the good, the bad and the ugly especially the nasty comments. We just wanted it to be for us.”

The couple had previously planned to get married at a year earlier but because of unavoidable circumstances, they had to postpone the wedding.

“There is no time as the year has already come to an end. Sometimes people need to change their mind and we decided to do it at a later date. Those were Chiki’s plans though. I told you if I was given a chance I would just call people to ask them to meet us somewhere and watch us say ‘I Do’,” said Bien during a previous interview.

As Tim Keller said “Marriage is two flawed people coming together to create a space of stability, love & consolation, a haven in a heartless world,” Bien admits to having flaws that he is constantly working on.

“I am the king of pettiness and I keep grudges but I am slowly leaning towards working on that,” said Bien.

What has kept their relationship going for so long you wonder? The couple reveals their secret to be constant communication and their friendship.

“Friendship keeps us sane. We fight but we talk about it. Relationships work when there is communication we work through things and we hang out,” they said.