But with time and situation and divine intervention, I came to quickly
understand there is a huge difference between a Dream Wedding & a
Wedding of Realities and I have several reasons why I am grateful that I
experienced the latter. I’m not saying you can’t have your Dream
Wedding, if you have all the resources to do it, go ahead! Like it’s
commonly said “It’s Your Big Day”! So if you decide to pull out all the
stops in a bid to make your wedding the talk of the town- as long as you
have to cash to throw around like politicians are wont to doing, then
ride hard boy! Ride hard!From my first and obviously last wedding experience (except for the stress I will need to go through for a close friend or my children/grand children’s wedding), I quickly came to certain strong conclusions which I chose to share with you in this article. Chief among all my discoveries about the 21st Century weddings is that most couples (especially the brides and the families of both Bride & Groom) take the pains to organize huge and expensive weddings is because of status & public impression i.e. What will people say? And that is the greatest killer of good marriages.
Parents try to impress the members of their local church, club or Association, Political group, Village and peer group or business associates with especially lavish receptions in a bid to keep tongues wagging for a while with discussions like “Were you at Doctor So-So & So’s Son’s Wedding? Hmmm! You missed O!” And as the parents try to outdo each other, the couples labor to impress the massively expanding online community of wedding bloggers and friends on Photo-based Social Media Apps like Instagram & Facebook. If you think it’s a lie, ask the top photographers what they charge simply for pre-wedding photos which couples today see as a must. The very idea of taking trips to exotic locations just to shoot pictures that will be posted online before the wedding itself really baffles me.
What does it actually do for the marriage except for elicit the usual and mostly cosmetic “Awww, cute couple” comments and the likes they get on Facebook/Instagram that’s all!
Here are 10 reasons why I think your wedding should be just like mine!
- THE RIGHT SPOUSE/FAMILY MAKES THE WORST WEDDING WORTH IT When you consider the fact that (for some pentecostal Christians) you have 3 weddings to undergo i.e. Traditional, Court & Church wedding and all the stress associated with organizing and getting money and people together. If he/she doesn’t end up being the right person, you have just shot yourself in the foot. My in-laws were and are simply great! They made it less stressful for with everything and I mean EVERYTHING! If I were to marry my wife again, I will choose my in-laws again and again. They just simply lighted up the whole place. Jolly good fellas!
- A WEDDING IS JUST FOR A DAY: Whether it’s a traditional, court, Nikkai or Church wedding, its eventually going to end in a day and as a matter of fact- a FEW HOURS! Whatever magic you want to do during your wedding or whatever you are afraid of about your wedding, know this. It’s going to end in a DAY! After that, it’s the start about marriage. Don’t invest everything in your wedding and forget about the marriage.
- BUDGET! BUDGET! BUDGET:Work your wedding around a shoestring budget and don’t try to impress anybody. The lavish wedding you put together today may make headlines today, but someone is sure to outdo you tomorrow, so don’t even bother.
- WHO INVENTED THE CONCEPT OF “COMMITTEE OF FRIENDS?”: Avoid this trap! It never works. Most of the people you conscript into it don’t want to be there and let’s face it, everyone has got things to do and money to spend. What’s the point behind having extensive, purpose-less meetings when they eventually come around to asking you what preparations you have made. And don’t get me started on the contributions! Getting people to pay up could be life-threatening literarily. So what’s the point? Just get a few friends who could support you with the most they can and don’t forget what we said in point No.3. Budget, Budget, Budget!
- BRIDAL TRAIN IS A COMPLETE WASTE! SCRAP IT!: I should think in the old days, the concept of bridal train which probably started off in the late 80s was designed to include the best man, Chief bridesmaids and possibly a sprinkling of some of the couples siblings and very close friends. And I guess, seeing them walk along with them on the aisle had some emotional significance at the time and added to that, they assisted a lot in making sure the reception goes well. Well, those days they didn’t have Facebook, Twitter & Instagram like we have today and most members of bridal trains today won’t want to soil their nice outfits with food stains or water while serving. Today’s wedding is all about looks and perceptions. What’s important today is how the pictures look like afterwards, so people go looking for models and hunks who don’t care about you and were not too pleased about the stress of buying Aso-Ebis and sewing but rather things that will make the couple look spectacular only on that day. It’s all about Selfies & Photo-Albums for them. Bullshit! Remember? Budget? My wedding had just two people besides us, my best man & her maid of honor and they were people we really respected and wanted to do the job for us. Less stress!
- FOOD & DRINKS ARE THE MAIN THING. ANYTHING ELSE NA JARA!: Focus on feeding people at your reception, and the people I am talking about are the ones you budgeted for not the number of people you sent IVs to. Because we all know that it’s not about the IVs you send to your friends. Please avoid deceiving yourself that everyone has to eat at your reception, because they DO NOT. It depends on your guest list, invite a small number and feed them well. That’s what I did!
- A RECEPTION IS A RECEPTION! GET THAT?: A reception is a reception and all the waste of time we plan for during those moments is rubbish! Strike off the unnecessary agenda you want to print. Infact don’t bother printing anything because nobody is really interested in going through all that. All they want to do is eat, wait and go away (perhaps drop a gift on their way out). We had no set programme, no Chairman, No Kolanuts, No Witnesses Around Cutting the Cake or Dance with the Father. We just walked in leisurely and said hello to one or two people and walked straight to our seat with EVERYBODY SEATED AND EATING. The rest was Dance, Dance Dance! That was it!
- YOUNG PEOPLE DON’T BEAR GIFTS, DON’T EXPECT ANY:That explains itself.
- PAY UP VENDORS BEFORE OR DURING THE EVENT. DON’T BORROW, DON’T OWE!That explains itself too.
- DON’T DEPEND ON ANYONE! THEY ARE LIABLE TO FAIL!: The ones you expect to help most will fail you, 70% of the time. Help comes from people you don’t expect and those are the kind God uses.
