Monday, 31 August 2009

Planning a wedding 'Naija style'

About a fortnight or so before we officially postponed the wedding, I got a facebook message from a girl I know:

chichi! How are you? Hope all wedding plans are going great?! I wanted to know if your wedding is a typical naija wedding where i can just come..or do i need to be formally invited? Sorry to ask! Xx

Now I know the girl and she is a sweet girl, but I found the message quite funny.

Planning a wedding is difficult at the best of times, but in our culture we have the added fun of never really knowing how many people are actually going to turn up. RSVP is just a fancy phrase to put on the bottom of your invites.
People ask me 'how many people are coming to your wedding'? My response? 'Well I can tell you how many we have invited!' - the number that will turn up on the day is a completely different matter.

We've really tried to encourage our family and friends to let us know whether they are attending wedding events as it helps with planning; I mean the caterer needs to have a ball park right!

Not knowing numbers can cause problems with your venue, because you need to be able to accommodate your guest list comfortably plus around 20% for crashers. In Manchester you're kind of limited once you reach 500+, which is a serious reality with our wedding.

Many have tried (and failed) to deal with this issue as it something that is embedded within our culture.

Nigerian Weddings = family and friends (and friends of family and family of friends)!

To girl who sent me the message on FB, I have extended her an invitation for her boldness!
{Check out this wedding I went to in July, makes my wedding look small!}

1 comment:

  1. I meant to comment on this yesterday.
    That's how down south in the states do it too. However they really dont' believe in invites....everybody just come. But the last couple of yrs, they have stepped their game up and did actual invitations.
    I saw the link with the 900 guest. WOW, WOW and WOW! However, the pics really didn't do justice. I bet when they sprayed her, she had MONEY FOR MONTHS, lol, lol.

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