NIGERIAN WEDDINGS

Weddings in Nigeria are colorful, creative and extravagant productions, with guest lists of up to 2,000 people considered standard. In England, if you had 400 people at a wedding, that would be considered a huge number, In Nigeria, if you had 400 guests, people would say “Oh, dear". Families typically put much effort and expense into the event, as a wedding was an important status symbol - although "not in a negative way."

There are two parts to a Nigerian wedding. The first ceremony is the "traditional wedding," sometimes also referred to as the engagement. This is typically attended by fewer guests -- only family and close friends.

The couple would wear traditional dress, with the bride usually wearing a traditional fabric gifted to her by her new parents-in-law, sometimes sewn into a modern Afrocentric design.

The second, "white wedding" - with a guest list at the reception potentially running into the thousands. For this, the bride would wear a white bridal gown and the bridal party formal attire. The most popular time of year for weddings is in December, when expatriate Nigerians return from abroad and can face a schedule of weddings seven days a week.

Another distinctive feature of the Nigerian wedding is the wearing of "aso-ebi." The phrase, which translates from the Yoruba language as "clothes of the family," refers to the garments of matching fabric worn by the bride's family and friends at the ceremony.

"There was darkness for a long time and then there was a light, and that light was you. Your love has given me wings, and our journey begins today. I pledge before this assembled company to be your wife from this day forward. Let us make our two lives one life. I want you for today, tomorrow, and forever."

The above description will be probably very useful to me in a few years time when my husband and I renew our marriage with a traditional Nigerian wedding. This time our wedding  was a small private ceremony  with very few people and we only wanted to “confirm the love, the respect and the true friendship that we have for each other”.

True-As long as I’m married to the one I truly love, at the end of the day, our wedding day went perfectly.