Taking Control of your Wedding Day

To men this article might seem redundant but before you switch screens, did you know that wedding and planning a wedding are the most important event in a woman’s life. And if you really want to know your bride-to-be, just watch how she reacts when her wedding plans are not going accordingly, the ‘bridezilla’ (angry bride) comes out. Stay tuned and learn how never to see that side of her.

Brides who have ever attempted to take the rein of their Nigerian wedding can probably relate well with this article, and to those who are planning to walk down the aisle - pay close attention on how to make your day, YOUR DAY.

First of all, you have to be strong if you are ever going to stand a chance to get half your way.

At the beginning of the planning, everyone but you will tell you what your wedding should be like, what wedding invitation you should select etc. After a while you, the bride, start to wonder whose wedding is it, is it yours, the church or your parent’s? But stand firm.

Funny thing is it starts with simple hints about who should be in your wedding party like: “I think you should make your nieces and nephews the flower girls and boys.”—Who said I wanted a wedding party? to “Your wedding colors are no longer in vogue!”—So what?

One fundamental stuff to iron out before the big day is crowd control – knowing how many people you want to witness your special day. At my wedding I didn’t want the huge uncontrollable crowd who were only interested in collecting the goodies I had packaged. That shouldn’t be such a big deal considering the smaller the crowd the more you save, right? Wrong… a little filler, Nigerian parents like to invite the world (including people they barely know or they haven’t seen or heard from in donkey’s years). Why, they say ‘they want everyone to share their joy’ but I think it’s because they want to show off (don’t tell them I said that). Whatever the reason, a normal person would agree with me when I say the crowd is totally unnecessary.

Next is the church, there are various domination factors here, so watch out:
1. Your wedding dress, a lot of Nigerian churches now mandate you bring your wedding dress to them before the day unless they will refuse to perform the ceremony. Why – because they want to ensure you do not expose your body on that day. I have several issues with this relatively new practice in Nigeria because I do not think it is the church’s business to decide the type of dress you chose to wear on the most important day of your life. It should be left at your discretion after all the church does not tell its members what clothes to wear to church on Sunday so why should they start on your wedding day.

2. Wedding vows, in case you are thinking of exchanging your personal vows at the Altar, you might want to think again. Apparently orthodox churches like Methodist, Baptist etc probably will not be receptive to the idea. Someone told me that one of the pastors at her wedding rehearsal went ballistic when she told him they wanted to use their own vows. Sometimes I think some of these churches fuss over irrelevant things. I would understand if they want to see it first to ensure it is appropriate but that should be all.

3. I heard some churches even order the bride and groom to do a virginity test before they can be joined. LOL, that is silly. How can they possibly proof it? Even if the couple are not virgins, the first instinct is what has that got to do with the church joining them, aren’t they marrying each other now, so the issue is sort of mute. Anyway what happened to repentance and the spirit of forgiveness?

4. The final church palaver, and I know this is probably unique to my parent’s church and the likes —some workers at church were complaining during the wedding service about some of my female friends not covering their head or wearing pants to the service. Spare me….my friends were not members and it was a wedding ceremony for crying out loud, couldn’t they make exceptions?

Meanwhile at the reception, your parent’s friends and the ‘mo gbo mo yas’ (tag alongs) believe they should be in the best seats in the house. Correct me if am wrong, isn’t the wedding mainly for the bride and groom’s friends. I understand the bride and groom’s family having a great spot but after them should come the friends. So what’s up with putting friends in the leftover seats at the back corner while the unknowns are the ones hugging the fun? Really this friend part is left to the bride and groom to ensure their friends are taken care of, if not no else will do it.

So has you can see planning a wedding in Nigeria can be a very tough struggle but with persistence you can win. And the battle becomes even easier when the bride and groom are financing a significant part of their wedding, because it tends to reduce the parents’ ability to control. Anyway I’ve shared some of my experience, let me hear yours or the ones you’ve heard about.