Nigerian wedding: expectations vs reality

December 7, 2019

From the moment you’re engaged, your relationship becomes between you, your partner and a lot of family and friends. I thought I was prepared for this, but I was not. The only thing everyone kept telling me to prepare for was fighting a lot with my partner and our relationship falling apart because of the stress of wedding planning, which was the one thing that didn’t happen.

leave your expectations at the door

As someone who has been a bridesmaid ten times, you would think I would have known to do this. The first thing I had to give up was my ideal venue. Before I got engaged, I imagined renting out a restaurant and covering it with flowers and having only 300 guests. I had talked about this idea with my family before and everyone was super onboard…until I got engaged. Then, everyone looked at me like it was a ridiculous idea until it started to seem ridiculous to me too. Luckily, My amazing partner, and my dear friend planned a surprise party for me the next week that was as close to my ideal wedding plans as possible. *tears of gratitude*

The cost of everything aka wedding tax

In theory, everyone knows that weddings are expensive. Everyone knows that everything costs more. I still wasn’t prepared for it. The first shock was venues- mate. When I say Pry you say See- Pri-cey.

In my first meeting with a potential decorator, she asked me what my budget was and laughed when I gave an answer.

The first reception dress vendor I went to was trying to charge half of a million for the FABRIC. Not the work o- the actual like 3 yards or so of dirty fabric that she pulled from a cupboard.

Ole ni everybody

The manager of the hall misrepresented herself as the owner and overcharged us by almost double. I only found out after the wedding.

The expectation of being invited

There were people that don’t even follow me on Instagram, don’t have my number and I’m 100 percent sure have never read a single word of this blog that I’ve had for like 5 years, that expected to be invited to my wedding. Now my wedding wasn’t an invite only thing, people could have turned up if they wanted etc but seriously, a wedding isn’t a free turn up (at least it shouldn’t be), don’t be awkward and expect invites from people that you know you don’t care about in real life.

The way your brain convinces you into thinking everything makes sense

A pricey hotel room, an expensive car rental, the cost of slippers for guests- for some reason, everything makes sense when you’re in that wedding haze. That’s why it’s important to know beforehand what your absolute nos are because if you don’t decide beforehand, you will end up overspending on things you don’t care about. And don’t think you won’t regret it- post wedding spending regret is very real.

Tips I would recommend and things I would do differently

1. The DJ is the absolute most important part of your day. Do not pick someone you haven’t heard play a full set before, seriously. I had heard my dj at two weddings before I booked him, so I was sure he was going to be fire. If you have everything sorted and your dj isn’t great, the vibes will be dead.

2. Give your MC clear instructions about what you want to do- my MC had crystal clear instructions from the planner and he was appropriate and almost abrupt, which was what we wanted. The reception was very quick and I enjoyed that. Think about the wedding from a guest perspective, most people can’t even hear what’s going on on stage, so making it long is just dead.

3. Hire multiple food vendors to start at different times- I think this was a big key in everyone having food throughout the day. We also made vendor and driver food packs because realistically, you can’t have people working all day and not make arrangements to feed them. My worst nightmare was random guests having to know someone to get food, I’ve been in those situations and it’s not nice.

We had a main caterer that we could trust to feed everyone and then many many many many smaller caterers with food to feed numbers ranging from 100-300 people. We also had bowls of fruit on every table as the centre pieces and boxes of local snacks on each place setting. Basically, there was no chance of going hungry at the wedding. I think at some weddings where you don’t get food, it can seem like it’s because of a lack of food or planning, but most times, it’s because of poor management of food vendors on the day, which brings me to my next point.

4. The on the day co-ordinator is one of the most important people in the wedding. There’s a difference between wedding planning and wedding co-ordination and I feel like not enough people know that. It’s a shame to spend so much money and time making sure everything is great and then your guests having a poor experience and here’s the thing, you probably won’t ever know, sadly. Your experience as the couple is far removed from people’s experiences as guests. Vet the co-ordinator really really carefully, honestly. I wish I could recommend mine but she came out of retirement to plan and co-rodinate as a favour to my mum and isn’t in the business anymore.

5. If there are souvenirs that you only want specific people to get (like I made slippers with shoe bags for people to put their shoes in for young guests), include a tag to receive that as part of your access cards. I was bummed that the slippers kept going to people I didn’t intend for them to go to (yes, big auntie, I know you like slippers and shoe bags, but you’re not dancing).

6. Things are bound to go wrong, take it in your stride and enjoy your day. Ask any of our guests and they’ll tell you I was the happiest bride, because the day only happens once and I could not be bothered for anything to upset me. I had fun with my friends, ignored wardrobe mis-haps and changed into slippers at like 5pm. I didn’t worry about my husband or family, I focused on myself and had a great time. Luckily, most people had a great time too.

I’m sure I’m missing out so much, but I’m tired. Drop a comment if you have any questions or vendor recommendations and message me if you want to ask something more private. Also let me know your own planning experience(s)!

All the ways wedding dress shopping was different than I expected

November 19, 2019

The “white” wedding dress

Let me tell you the truth. I don’t like wedding dresses. That kind of dress has never been my style, so this was a part I was least excited about but also the part where I expected the most- I’ve watched a lot of Say Yes To the Dress .

In my imagination, I had an outsized number of family and friends going dress shopping with me. In reality, that entourage is probably facilitated by the bride. Did I facilitate it? no. So did I have an entourage? no. I dragged my mum and my sister to a dress shop in New York, my mum proclaimed the first dress I tried on as her favourite and then went to buy water in a pharmacy down the road. My sister was only mildly interested. To be honest, the three of us were underwhelmed. In the end, I decided it was too early to commit.

In London, my aunties sent me links to shops and dresses and reminded me I needed to get it out of the way, but still, no one offered to shop with me. Again, did I say “hey guys, can you please come shopping with me because this whole thing is long and kind of overwhelming.” I did not.

In the end, I went dress shopping one time with a friend that was also getting married. The dresses suited my price point and my taste (to the extent that wedding dresses could suit my taste) but I kept feeling like there was something missing, so I didn’t buy a dress.

When I got back to Lagos, a lot of people started to remind me that I should be losing weight for the wedding. On some level, it occurred to me that it was why I hadn’t bought a dress. There was a part of me when I was shopping that was thinking “if I still have to lose weight before the wedding, do I have to commit to a dress now?”

I hired a personal trainer and tried and failed to start a diet. I got really fit and lost some weight, but my body didn’t change substantially. The wedding was getting closer and I still didn’t have a dress. I went with a friend to a very popular dress vendor in Lagos. When the owner walked into the store, she said to me “you’re too big to have left it so late.” I looked at her, speechless. I know Nigerians pride themselves in their rude honesty, but I was honestly speechless. I tried on two dresses and the sample dresses were honestly filthy - I hated them.

By now, it was too months to my wedding, and I had no dress.

I found a random tailor, bought 6 yards of white wedding satin, 15 yards of soft tulle and asked her to make me a dress. The tailor kept asking if it was a wedding dress and, in the end, she adjusted some things so it wouldn’t be ideal as a wedding dress. I honestly didn’t care. I think by this time, I was looking forward to the day after the wedding. Nothing bothered me anymore. Now that it was close, my family were concerned that I was going to look trash and kept seeking alternate options to my imperfect dress. I wasn’t interested. The day before the wedding, the counsellor assigned to us in church said that the top of my wedding dress was too sheer. Cue two of my friends hand sewing pieces of fabric on top of my cover up to make it less sheer. Nightmare. In the end, I was just glad when the church service was over, and I could move on.

Reception dress

The reception dress seemed like it was going to go way better at first. My aunt offered to sort it out. The first person we went to, her long-time friend and brilliant designer added so many extra zeroes to the end of her usual price, it was ridiculous. Eventually, we went to another designer who also sold fabric and bought some fabric. The fabric came first, style later. By this time, I was used to the designers telling me to make sure I lost weight in time for my final fitting.

By the time price and fabric were confirmed, the designer said I would have to buy more fabric for my dress style. This fabric was already super expensive, so there was no way I was doing that, so I offered to find fabric myself to mix in. Eventually, I bought fabric and dropped it at the studio. A couple of days later, no one had reached out to me. I followed up and was told that the fabric wouldn’t match. We made adjustments to the style. Remember, I was on a tight deadline here? After weeks of back and forth (oh you need to come back to fit with a different bra, oh I don’t know if this style would work for your body type), I went to the studio to ask what was happening. I left the studio and they called me and asked me to come and pick up my fabric because they refused to work with me. If I was reading this story on someone else’s blog, I would think “there has to be more to the story.” There wasn’t. They just chose to be crazy, which, as I found out during wedding planning is very common.

I picked up the fabric and it was now less than a month to my wedding.

About 10 days before the wedding, I convinced the designer that made my traditional wedding outfit to make my reception dress. In that time, they had to do a calico fitting (basically, using plain cotton to make the dress and adjusting it perfectly to my measurements and then using that as a pattern so the actual dress wouldn’t need adjusting) and also complete the dress. It was fantastic, fit perfectly and they delivered it to my house. I would absolutely recommend them. Their prices are good, their work is great, and their customer service is unbelievable.

One more thing about this dress thing. My aunt suggested I go to a designer to ask about my second dress. First of all, her consultation fee was N60,000 (refundable against a purchase, non-refundable with no purchase) and then when she costed the dress (with my fabric and a discount) she wrote out the price for me in a blue bic biro- N850,000. That was the most unbelievable thing that happened in this whole experience. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Surprised does not begin to cover how I felt. Needless to say, I wrapped my fabric into my paper carrier bag, said my thanks and ran out of her store like my life depended on it.

Traditional Outfit

My traditional wedding outfit was a much better experience. My mum bundled me in the car one morning and took me to Bisbod. We looked at different kinds of aso oke and colours and picked a colour and a finish everyone was happy with. I got it way ahead of the scheduled delivery time, it looked exactly how I wanted and Bisbod did a fantastic job. Bisbod recommended the designer that made me outfit and I had zero complaints or problems with them. They even came to my house on the day of the wedding to dress me. My traditional outfit was the best I looked and felt in the whole wedding experience.

My shoes for the traditional were also the first pair of shoes I bought for the wedding. I took the shoes to pick the fabric and that’s part of how we arrived at the colour. I bought three pairs of shoes for the wedding but ended up wearing only the ones for the traditional and then my mum’s shoes on the white wedding day.

Court Wedding and Nikkah (yes I had 4 weddings)

For my court wedding, I wore an old dress.

For my nikkah, I wore what would have been my second outfit for the traditional if I changed.

Hair, Make-up and accessories

When I started asking vendors for the price of hair and make-up, I just knew that it wasn’t going to click for me. There was no way I was spending x10 or x15 my normal hair price for the wedding. On the day, I asked my cousin to help me put it up and that was that.

Another cousin is a make-up artist and doing my make-up for free was her wedding gift to me.

I asked my friend that recently got married for her veil- in fact, I asked two friends for their veils and chose one on the day.

I know my experience is no where near typical, brides usually spend a lot more and care a lot more about their outfit. My aunties kept saying “what about the pictures?” but my thought was “I’ve taken pictures before and I will take pictures again” so that’s honestly not a consideration for spending ridiculous amounts of money on a dress or hair or accessories for one day or even a few hours.

What would I do different?

My hair. I would have it done in a professional ponytail a few days before the wedding in a regular salon. I would have bought my church dress on asos. I think those are the only two things I would have done differently. I woke up the day after the white wedding and did not regret a single kobo spent. That to me was worth everything.

One more thing, I would have asked for help more and not felt like I was alone in all of it, because that was in my head.

Saying all this, I want to stress a few things:

1. These things weren’t important to me personally, if they were, I would have put more thought and effort into it and I think everyone should absolutely prioritise without apology, the things that are important to them during their wedding.

2. I made impulsive decisions about my church dress because I knew it was coming off as soon as the church service was over. I had absolutely no emotional attachment to it. My reception dress cost x5 times more, and my traditional outfit was in the range of my reception dress outfit.

3. I’ve been a bridesmaid TEN times (ridiculous, I know) and along the way, I kind of figured out what was worth it and what wasn’t for me. Brides often regret at least one of their dresses, their hair, random accessories and the price of their make-up.

4. Looking back on it now, none of it mattered at all. I was so happy on all of the days and grateful to every single person that came with me to fittings and brainstormed solutions and sent me their veils and stayed up most of the night hand sewing and offering to buy me a dress- there was so much love in the process, it was just different to how I imagined it at first.

The Engagement Starter Pack

January 11, 2015

Look at the nail polish, not the nails

We've just come out of a wedding/engagement season. Christmas, year ending, year starting, vacations (meaning loads of plane proposal opportunities) and so on. If you missed out on last season, don't despair, there's a new season next month! Phew! And I'm going to tell you how to make sure you're ready ready ready when it comes.

1. Nails Nails Nails- Do I even need to say this? Buff , shine and oil those cuticles. This is the first thing you do after it happens and chipped nails might be quirky but your friends are not going to want to put up that picture of your crusty fingernails and if your engagement picture isn't shared, did you get engaged?

Look at the perfection of these nails and ring and hands. Who wouldn't want to get engaged to this?

2. Hands- honestly, if you're waiting for your engagement, you're probably old enough that you should be slathering hand cream on your hands endlessly for no reason (well, for the reason that you're like...old). No-one wants to see folds of skin pooling around your engagement ring.

Can't you see what difference moisturiser would make to these hands?

3. Waterproof Mascara- because you HAVE to cry. HAVE TO. Have you mistakenly watched an engagement? the guy almost gets on one knee and they girl puts her head down, already overwhelmed and he asks and she takes a loooong time to say yes and then there's a long hug. My point is- cry and waterproof mascara so after the hug, you can look cute for the photos.

4. Sync your calendar with a friend- not your period calendar and preferable a friend that likes taking pictures. Imagine it happens and it's beautiful and all these things are perfect AND THERE'S NO VIDEO OF IT AFTERWARDS. The worst! Now is the time to make sure your friend coincidentally eats wherever you eat, goes to whatever party you go to and if he ends up doing it in a private place, well at least you tried.

5. Eyebrows- your hands will be covering most of your face but your eyebrows will show!! So please and please , keep those eyebrows 'on fleek'