Planning a Nigerian wedding in 6 months is possible but requires a good sense of organization and details. Let’s help – use our 6 months wedding planning checklist below. It’s our ultimate list of things to do from before to the wedding day up to the day you say ‘I do’, and also includes tips on how to ensure the event is well-coordinated on that D-day.
Want to know what things a bride-to-be (and groom) should do when planning and preparing for a wedding in Nigeria within 6 months? Read to the end to discover the 21 simple steps you must follow to stay stress-free and organized when preparing for a wedding in 6 months or less.
21 Steps to Planning a Nigerian Wedding in 6 Months
So, here are the list of things to follow and things to do when organizing a wedding in Nigeria:
1. Start Early to Plan Your Wedding.
If you start preparations at least 6 months before the date of your wedding, you can be sure to get most things done and out of the way. That way, you’ll have the rest of the mind around the date of your wedding.
2. Make A List Of Potential Helpers
Make a list of people who can help you with different wedding-planning tasks that are on your Planning Checklist. I like to call them your ‘personal wedding planning team’. Your team can be made up of your bridesmaids, close friends and family and/ or a hired, professional wedding planner.
By the way, if you have a wedding planner, that person will do everything about planning and coordinating your wedding – so that you can go to sleep and show up pretty on your wedding day, with an assurance that everything is in control. It’s a good idea to follow up with your wedding planner or helpers every week – it’s easier following up with one person that all the many vendors involved in a wedding.
How to Guarantee that Your Wedding Day Will Be Perfect As Planned (6 Steps)
3. Reach Out and Ask Others to Help Out
So you’ve made a list of potential helpers, how it’s time to pick some of them as your wedding planning team, and reach out to them.
No single person can plan a wedding. You need a team to plan it, and you also need a team to help with implementing the plans. I highly recommend hiring a professional wedding planner, if you can afford one – it makes a whole lot of difference. However, if you are on a budget, you still can have an amazing wedding – you can put together your personal planning team from your friends and relatives.
Contact the people on your list, who you want to assist you do some of the tasks in your wedding planning checklist or To-Do List. You’re wrong if you’re waiting for them to come to you to offer help. No, they are actually waiting for you to ask. So, goa ahead and ask if they can find the time to assist with your wedding planning. Also, let them know you’d be delegating some wedding tasks to them.
Also, ask your mom and her friends, aunties, family members and friends. Choose bridesmaids and maid of honour (chief bridesmaids), and ask them to help out in your wedding plans.
Not Sure If You Need a Wedding Planner? Here Are 6 Signs that Tell You ‘Yes’or ‘No’
4. Make a Wedding Checklist and Timeline to Plan With
After you’ve told a couple of people that you’ll need their help, next is to tell them what to help out with, so write down a wedding planning to-do list, of things to do from now to your wedding day. AFTER doing that, you should assign one or more work from that list to each person you’ve asked for help. You know these people, and what they are good in or love to do – so use that knowledge to assign your wedding to-do-list to them.
- We created some ready-to-use wedding planning resources just for you – our traditional wedding checklist and a 12-months white wedding planning checklist with a list of activities to do month by month. Our different planning checklists with timelines will keep you organized when preparing for your white wedding. The wedding timeline is about adding dates of when to do things, to your wedding to-do list.
- If your wedding is in 3 months or less: 3 Months Wedding Checklist
- If you’re having both trad and white wedding on the same day, see our guide on How to Plan a Traditional Wedding and White Wedding on Same Day (plus samples of program of event, or flow of events).
5. Involve Your Fiancé
Assign your fiancé some of the tasks/ things-to-do from your wedding planning checklist. You may want to ask him to tell you the things he can help out with, OR just choose areas that you know he can do well). Generally, men love helping out with setting the wedding budget, planning for drinks, hiring the DJ and planning the wedding music playlist, making arrangements for the sound system for the day, negotiating the venue price, planning what the boys (groomsmen and aso-ebi guys) will wear, planning the honeymoon trip. Some guys also love to join their brides during food and cake tasting (when looking to choose vendors).
6. Make a Budget List and a Budget Breakdown
Make a list of the things you need to buy or rent for the wedding. Find out how much each one costs, and then total up the costs. That is your wedding budget. We already made you a ready-made wedding budget list, with all items filled, all you need to do is fill how much each thing costs.
- SEE: How to make your wedding budget from scratch
- How to Make a Wedding Budget Breakdown
7. Make a List Of Potential Wedding Vendors
Most Nigerians have a couple of family members around who are willing and ready to help out with cooking and some other areas so that you won’t have to pay vendors for some services. In any case, write down the list of things that you would need to hire people to do for you; also make a list of the things your family members and friends will do for you for free.
Where and How to Find Wedding Vendors: Top 11 Places and How to Choose the Good Ones
8. Decide on Type of Wedding Venue You Need – Outdoor Or Indoor?
If outdoor, will it be a garden or a family house backyard or an open field? If indoors, will it be a hotel or an event center or where?
- READ ALSO: How to Find and Choose a Wedding Venue
9. Search For and Interview Potential Vendors and Venues
Start asking around and compiling names of possible vendors who will help you put things together for your wedding. Visit them, ask them some questions, see pictures of them at work and of their works at a previous wedding, and fix a date to taste food and cakes, and inspect possible venues.
GO TO NEXT PAGE: 12 MORE STEPS – PLANNING A WEDDING IN 6 MONTHS
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peace says
pls i don’t know how to use the calculator,pls my traditional marriage and white wedding is on September, i we have 4000k pls help me on what to do, thanks
Stella Anokam says
Hi Peace, I have an automatic wedding calculator that I made for you guys. Just go to that page, type in your amount (400,000) without comma, and it will automatically show you a breakdown of how to spend this N400k on your wedding.
After that, come back here if you need more insights.
Thanks for being there for us, I was asked to list out things that need to be put in place before the actual day of our wedding such as the date for introduction, wedding date and others and I don’t knkw how to start. Could you pls help. Thanks!
Hello Vera, thanks for your feedback.
The list of things you need to put in place before your wedding date are the 21 things listed above, in this post. see those 21 points, write them out, without including the explanations. In the above 21 steps checklist, you can see date, budget, and all that.
I made another checklist or to-do list before white wedding <== click to see whether you prefer that. I also have a traditional wedding planning to-do list specially for you to prepare for your trad.
So, check out those above 2 links and let me know if you still have questions. They are both a complete list of things to do when preparing for a Nigerian wedding and should help you.
Hi
Pls in white wedding which family does the cooking is it the groom’s or the bride’s family
Hello Kim, traditionally, weddings are located in the bride’s hometown and that makes it easy for the bride’s family to cook.
Nice job, please how much is it going to cost to get a wedding planner?
Hello Faith, the cost varies as wedding planners do not all charge the same amount, depending on many factors. Generally, some planners charge a percentage (10% or slightly less) of your total wedding budget. Some charge a fixed cost. That should guide you when you go discussing/ choosing your wedding planner.
Other things that can affect the cost of a wedding planner in Nigeria, include their location, popularity, experience, how long they have been in business, and profile of their business. A wedding planner in a popular part of a state/ country is likely to charge more than those in the outskirts. A wedding planner that has a high-class branding is going to cost more.
Yes, it does.
Good day ma.
Pls I want to know can #200,000 be okay for me to do my traditional marriage excluding the bride price
It should.
Thing about the wedding preparation action plan, kindly put me through how to plan a wedding on a small budget. the wedding is this year not yet fixed a date planning to toward it. I needed a list of item to put in place.
Best Regards,
Godfrey.
Thanks for your question, Godfrey. We created a couple of articles to help anyone on a small budget plan a classy wedding, or cut down costs. You can click here to see and read the posts.
Thanks for the tips you gave us. will my wedding is this April but i dont were to start. could you please help us. Thanks.
Hi Vicky, start by doing the steps in this post – do one, complete it and them do the next. Also, follow the steps in these other posts:
–Traditional wedding planning checklist of things to do
–White wedding planning checklist of things to do
–Small Wedding Tips: Over 100 Ways to Save Money
–How to Plan Your Wedding Reception: Step by Step
Hello Tanks for been there for people like us my wedding is April it going to on a low key but I dnt even knw were to start planning from. God bless u and kip up ur gud works.
Constance, thanks for reading NaijaGlamWedding posts. We’re glad that you appreciate our efforts. Feel free to ask us any questions here on this blog, after reading any of our tips.
Your feelings are normal; most engaged, brides-to-be feel the same way, and that’s why I started this wedding website – to provide easy-to-do wedding planning tips and guides.
*My dear, you can start from this page – by following and doing the tips one by one; and you can also read the other helpful articles linked in this post. We always receive feedback and emails from brides and grooms who tell us that our wedding planning articles were what they followed to organize their wedding.
*Some about-to-wed brides are very busy to plan their wedding themselves, due to work – in case you’re in that situation, the best way to go would be to hire a wedding planner to do the running-around for you. If you’re not sure whether you should hire a wedding planner or not, read this post – and you’ll be able to decide quick.
Happy wedding-planning, and be sure to join our wedding communities for Nigerian brides – you’ll get to meet other brides planning weddings this time, as well as vendors.