The Nigerian Wedding

Nigeria is a country bless with rich culture and tribes with  nearly 371 tribes, and 3 major tribes (included in the 371) which are…. the IGBO, HAUSA & YORUBA tribe, and this very fact can be seen in the rich display of the  Nigerian wedding. Boy I tell you, planning a wedding in Nigerian isn’t no joke, Financial stability and lots of physical energy is required; well depends on how extravagant you want it to be, It takes at least 2 days to complete – which consists of the Introduction, Engagement, court/Church Wedding and lastly Reception.

Personally I really don’t fancy attending wedding ceremonies cause their are just too many extended families trying to Keep up with the latest info in one’s life and they end with chipping in advice on what to do with your life even when you don’t ask for their opinion, but I can’t deny the fact that the Nigerian traditional engagement wedding is one I don’t like to miss. I feel the traditional wedding and engagement is much more interesting, lovely, funny and the most beautiful way for us to experience our culture and also to honor and thank our parents and extended families for every of their contribution (either Physically, morally, spiritually or financially) in one’s life.

The picture below is an example of how a bride from the Yoruba tribe (western Nigeria)  looks during her traditional wedding and engagement and the attire she has on is called Aso-Oke

Brides traditional look from the south-south of  Nigeria

I will just take you through my most cherished and never to miss moment of the traditional wedding and engagement.

1. The groom giving his greetings to the brides family: This is when the grooms will have to come with his friends to prostrate to the brides family to show his respect to them as greeting is very important in the Nigerian culture and the bride’s family which the groom is showing his respect to offer prayers back in return.

• The brides entrance: The brides comes in shortly after the grooms and she normally enters in a grand style with her entourage of sisters and friends behind her all wearing same attire. (bride in white below). I normally do call this an Unavoidable ‘show-off’ as every lady in attendance that is still single&not part of the entourage  might just start day-dreaming of her been the bride at that moment.

• The cake: Am a big fan of the cake not because am eager to eat it but because it’s too beautiful that I wish it won’t be temper with. The cakes are decorated to depict our local way of life as you can see below, some of the designs consists of the couple in traditional attire, couple paying respect to their parents, our local calabash, Kolanut and so many designs.

• The Proposal and acceptance letter:  This letter is presented by the grooms family to the brides family and the letter will be read out loud by the youngest member of the brides family. This process is what i call ‘Legal extortion’ of one’s money and you can’t complain, whereby it will be announce that the groom family will have to pay for the plane ticket that will fly in the reader to the venue and funny enough the reader might just be 2 chairs away from the compere and I love it.

Below are pictures showing details of the Nigerian traditional engagement celebration and the white/church wedding.

• Annie and Ike Igiebor Traditional engagement wedding and White wedding.

Annie and Ike Traditional wedding

Ike and Annie – This is a typical traditional marriage from the southern part of Nigeria ( The bride always look colorful wearing so many beautiful beads from head-to-toe).

The Groom and his friends in Aso Ebi.

Couples and families.

Groom and bride dancing together with members of their family. Oh! and spraying money is one of the Nigerian way of flaunting their wealth.

Bride and groom in their traditional attire.

Groom and friends.

The venue.

Annie & Ike white wedding.

Brides accessories.

Bride and her entourage.

The groom and his friends.

The Venue

Arrival of the bride and her Bridesmaids

Bridesmaids.

The brides arrival.

• RECEPTION

A well beautiful decorated cake always steal the show for me, if you are a cake lover like I am – Am sure you will understand.

Couple grand entrance to the Reception.

Mr. & Mrs. Oni Traditional Engagement wedding

Below are pictures from Mr. & Mrs. Oni Engagement and the both couple are from the western part of Nigeria thus shows the difference in attire from the top pictures.

Brides beaded necklace and bracelet

Bride getting ready

Groom

The Beautiful Bride.

Brides (in veil) arrival at the ceremony center with her entourage behind her.

Bride giving her greetings to her parents and families

Oh! and this is the part I dread the most where the bride and her mother are both in tears, I still do tell my mum that i see no reason why I have to cry, but she says I can’t understand till the D-day comes, Well so fingers crossed till then.

Bride and groom together

Bride and friends.

Mr. & Mrs Ayodele Traditional Engagement.

• Traditional Engagement

Bride

Bride and groom

The engagement ring.

Bride and groom with friends

The Couple.

Bride and groom with siblings

Love the cake design.

All the gifts seen in the picture above are for the bride brought by the groom and his family, but as seen in this picture she’s only allow to pick one gift at the time of the ceremony which will eventually be the “Holy Bible”(I called this – Automatic default LOL). She can’t and must not pick any other thing than the bible.  If ice-cream is included in the gift I doubt I will remember picking the bible tho! 🙂 but at the end of the ceremony the remaining gifts still belong to the bride.

And voila! she picked the Bible.

The acceptance and proposal letter.

Bride and groom with bride entourage in their Aso-Ebi (also known as Uniform)

Brides gift from the groom and his family.

Groom and his friends

The groom and his friends prostrating to his bride family

Bride and friends.

The Bride.

Bride getting ready for her engagement – I totally love her head-gear

Bride kneeling down while the husband prays for her (Prayer is an essential part of any Nigeria ceremonies)

Mr & Mrs Adeyemi Traditional Engagement and Church/White Wedding

The beautiful bride in her traditional attire.

Bride and groom

• White/church wedding

Bride.

Groom and bride dancing together.

Bridesmaids.

Dancing Time.