Ibi Cookey 
Most people think February is the month of love because of Valentine’s Day, and it is but it doesn’t hold a shine to November. If you sync your calendar with 2 friends max, you all will come up with a wedding every weekend!
Some people may say well that’s the same in December. Yes, but December has so many other activities on that it diminishes the effect and turns it into another party.
In November we get to experience the love to its fullest! We have time to celebrate the couple, to appreciate the friends of the couple who sacrificed a lot to be on the train, especially the chief bridesmaid who is basically an assistant wedding planner, to appreciate the families also because without them Nigerian weddings won’t be half the production that it currently is!
I don’t use the word production lightly either, let’s talk about it shall we. Nigerian weddings include a lot of extra aspects you don’t get to see in the western world and this is why most of our citizens living abroad opt to come home to celebrate their weddings.
For starters:
- The guest size – Being Nigerians we can hear a wedding has 1000 guests and not bat an eye, in fact it is more shocking to hear a wedding had 100 guests. In Nigeria anyone that knows your family name expects an invite to your wedding. I remember when I had a British colleague, we talked about her wedding daily for weeks and the most I got was an invite was her saying she wishes I could be there! We have to give it to our people taking on such a cost to feed so many.
- The after party – Now more than ever, wedding after parties have become a norm! They literally have a budget of their own, they are catered for separately, some even have a separate set of lounge chairs rented for this. Most brides and their train have a change of clothing too and not just any old dress from their wardrobe, a specially made one!
- Pre wedding shoots – I’m so sure this started off as a simple concept so people have a picture of the bride and groom, maybe a picture to have on the invitation. I know in olden days, elites had their pictures published in the newspapers. Now! It’s like you’re releasing an album cover. Hotels charge exuberant prices do use their space for this occasion, yes occasion, this is another specially made outfit or outfits and finally the cost of the make up artist. That brings us into the final subject of this production,
- Make up artists – at this point we’ve all heard of people going to get their wedding make up done in secret to save cost. Although a lot of make up artists do have good packages that include the bride and her train so the costs are lower.
These are just a few things on the list. We all know, Nigerians can never carry last and of course that is reflected in how much we put into our memorable day. I must commend us though, because it’s always a great time and even though it’s just a day, the memory truly does live on!
Here at Fitted, we understand how expensive things are now and we have come up with multiple packages on our store to reduce the overall cost you’re spending on clothing, whether as a guest, the bride / groom, friends of the couple, or train and even the mogbomoya’s 😂
We have it all for you, just watch this space because we’ll be releasing all details next week and you know good things go fast!