#2. Not Setting a Guest Count to Plan the Reception Logistics
What makes a wedding go smoothly is detailed-out planning. And it’s all about planning with numbers and limits. You have to know how much money and how many people you are planning with and for. The idea of setting a guest count in advance for the purpose of wedding planning is one that most Nigerians are not yet familiar with (see video down below, for illustration).
How do you know how big or small a reception venue space is required? How do you know how many plates of food or drinks to order? How do you know how many chairs and tables to rent or request from your reception venue? If you make a guest list in advance, you can estimate all those.
Not planning with a guest list will ultimately lead to a wedding bigger than your resources. Big weddings are nice but not when the quality is poor. However, every Saturday at weddings, we see the signs of a wedding that was planned without knowing how many people will attend. Usual signs that the couple did not plan the reception with a guest count include a crowded and cramped venue, food and drinks not enough for the people that attended, or even people scrambling to get the few available souvenirs.
These types of weddings are not classy at all, and there’s no excuse to justify inviting more guests than your budget can handle. Here, we preach classy weddings on any budget, and small is the new big with classy Nigerian weddings.
I love that many Nigerian couples are now going for the size of weddings they can afford, and not being ashamed to keep guest numbers smaller than the classic Naija owambe-style weddings. Why not, because there’s ‘class’ in minimalism, and some “small’ weddings even cost more than big weddings. So, a quality wedding is not in how plenty your guests are.
Wedding planning is not about just going about buying wedding gowns and suits (for the groom); not about as-ebi and aso-oke. It’s not about choosing fabric colour combination. What’s the “planning’ at a wedding without numbers? If you are not planning with a specific number of guests (aka guest list), you are not planning. Also, if you told your wedding caterer how many people to cook for, but you are not making sure to limit guests to that number (on the D-day), you’re not planning.
- RELATED POSTS: How to Make a Guest List
- How to Trim Down Your Guest List to an Affordable Number
- Reasons You Should Make a Guest List Before Printing Your Invitation List
WHAT TO DO INSTEAD:
Set the guest count and set the budget in advance, before making any spending. Get a pen and paper, and write down how many people you want to have at the wedding – that lets you know how much floor space you require for the venue, how many plates of food and drinks to prepare and budget for and how many souvenirs to order.
Next, write down how much money you want to spend on the wedding. That is your wedding budget. Next, break that budget down to know how much to spend on food, venue and other wedding reception areas. Next, write down a few Nigerian wedding meals you want to be served at your reception. Go for a few popular food options – too many options will increase the cost.
Finally, with your food budget, go talk to caterers to get an idea of how much they charge per plate of food. Next, divide your food budget by the per plate price the caterer gave you. The result is the number of wedding guests to invite. For example, if your caterer says a plate of food is N1,500 and your food budget is N150k; that means you can order 100 plates of food with that amount. Hence, you can invite 100 guests and be sure that the food will go round.
NOTE: When writing down your budget, do not include money that was promised to you. I mean, from the money you already have in your account or have spent time-saving up for. It’s better to plan with the physical cash you’re seeing, even if people have promised you this or that. That way, even if they disappoint, you’ll still have a good wedding and not feel bad. And if they delivered on their promise, all good.
- SEE ALSO: What to Look For in a Wedding Venue
#3. Inviting Too Many Guests Than You Can Afford
Another wedding planning mistake we see with Nigerian couples is that they invite more guests than they can cater to. With Nigerian weddings, parents of the bride and groom usually freely invite as many of their own people as possible. Sometimes, an entire women’s meeting or church group members of the parents of the couple are invited. Add that to the couple’s parents’ friends and the list of people that the couple themselves will invite.
Large Nigerian weddings are great and fun, but only if the number was taken into consideration when choosing the venue or planning for the reception catering. When these are overlooked, we usually see overcrowded and stuffy wedding halls and barely enough food and drinks, among other issues.
The main reason Nigerian weddings are very expensive is that too many people are invited. That was not a problem in the past when the economy was good and most parents could afford to pay for all or a big part of the wedding. These days, most people tying the knot have a low paying job and are fully paying for their own weddings with little or no financial support from elsewhere.
Hence, some couples are taking bank loans to fund their weddings. That, we do not encourage because starting a marriage broke often leads to divorce and separation. Besides, you can still have an amazing wedding reception within your small or not-so-small budget.
‘The more, the merrier’ was what the traditional Nigerian weddings used to be all about. It can be fun, it’s our culture but the cost may get larger than the pocket of the celebrants. At a typical Naija wedding reception, the couple personally knows less than forty percent of the guests. A big chunk of the excess number of guests is usually from the parents of the bride and groom.
Mothers would generally invite members of their women-meeting, church meeting and their friends. But you can let your parents know how much you have and that it would not be enough to feed more than the number you budgeted for. You can beg them to help to fund food and drinks, or extra venue space, for any extra number of guests they really want to be invited.
Nigerian parents and parents-in-law usually invite will hand you a very long guest list. Add that to your own list – the bride’s guests and groom’s friends. Plus your village meeting – they all want to come in a long bus, to your wedding. Here’s a video of how Nigerian couple’s parents just love to invite their whole meeting to their children’s wedding:
WHAT TO DO INSTEAD
Know your food budget and match it to the number of people that will attend your wedding. Break down your wedding budget to get an idea of what to spend on food. Use your reception food budget to know the number of guests that your wedding budget can afford to feed. Next, divide the guest count among you (bride, groom) and your parents (both sides).
For example, if you plan on having 100 guests, you may want to share that number 50-50 between you and your groom’s side of the family – so that they know the limit when they send you names of people to address invitation cards to.
It is better to have a small wedding that’s classy than a big wedding with guests scrambling for food and leaving unhappy. Your parents may be inviting everyone, thinking you can afford it. Just find time to let them know your capacity; I mean how many guests your money can cater to, and how many guests they can invite. They will understand because they love you.
Since most Nigerian parents love inviting everyone they know to their children’s weddings, if you are working with a tight budget, ensure to let your parents know you are planning a small wedding based on what you can afford. Let them know that you will be able to invite more people if you can get extra funds assistance from them, otherwise, you are happy to keep the wedding within your small budget.
- RELATED POSTS: How to Make a Guest List
- How to Trim Down Your Guest List to an Affordable Number
- Reasons You Should Make a Guest List Before Printing Your Invitation List
Click NEXT below to read the remaining 4 reasons
I NEED A NICE COLOUR FOR WEDDING COMING UP NEXT MONTH.
Congrats on the upcoming wedding, Racheal. Stay tuned to our blog posts as we plan to write an article series on ‘best colour combos for Nigerian weddings’.
Thanks for coming around, and be sure to make use of our free wedding planning tools here https://naijaglamwedding.com/wedding-planning-tools/ – they’ll help you save time and make planning your wedding easier.