4. Avoid a Too-Small Wedding Reception Hall
At some Nigerian weddings, the venue space cannot fit all the guests, and there is very little space for movement. You will see your guests squeezing between the tables when stepping away from their seats.
Some couples either rent a wedding venue space that is too small for their guest count, either because they invited too many people or did not plan for the usual uninvited guests. For whatever reason, a wedding reception in a tight venue space is not classy at all.
WHAT TO DO:
- First set a maximum number of guests to invite. This number will help you pick the right venue size, as event venues are charged by size. Guest count also helps your caterer to give you the cost of food and drinks.
- Do not rent a wedding venue until after making your guest list. Before you pay, make sure the hall is big enough to take the guests seated and dancing too. Don’t believe it because you were told the hall seats 100 people – see it with your own eyes. You cannot afford the cost of inviting everyone you know.
- Factor in the space for dancing, space for walking in/ out, will space be enough if you have to change the seating arrangement to round tables, etc? Use your number of guests to estimate the size and cost of wedding venue you require;
How to Use Number of Guests to Calculate Your Wedding Cost (and Venue Cost)
5. Don’t Hire an Unprofessional DeeJay (DJ)
If no one is dancing during ‘dance time’, it’s because the DJ’s tracks are dulling them.
WHAT TO DO:
- Hire a professional DJ and be sure to give him/ her your must-play songs and also ask them to play you a sample of the songs they will play on your wedding day. Bad DJ = dull wedding, bad photographer = no memory.
6. Prevent Wedding Photographer Show-down
After weddings, many couples look forward to seeing pictures from their day that will give them a glimpse of the things their eyes missed. There’s nothing more heartbreaking for a newlywed to not see their wedding photos when they expected to, or never see it. Well, in a country like Nigeria where you cannot sue any service provider for poor delivery or no-show, it is common to hear about couples that had issues with the photographer they hired.
Imagine this: after your wedding, you could still be chasing and begging the photographer for your wedding pictures (even though he begged you to hire him before your wedding day). To add insult upon injury, he sends the photos after many months but they are blurred and some are just snapshots of ‘headless people’.
That is hard to imagine, but it happens all the time in our beloved Naija. Sometimes, one about-to-weds hires a photographer and he ends up sending ‘a learner’ (aka apprentice) to cover that wedding – which was not what was agreed.
Sometimes, some photographers showoff impressive pictures done by a different professional (as their work) just to get hired, and the quality of snaps they deliver after the wedding are a sharp contrast. If any of that happened to you, what would you do? Would you redo your wedding and be wiser to follow advice on hiring a better photographer or what?
In one article, I told of some weddings where the couple hired a supposedly professional photographer for both video coverage and picture snaps, but the photographers disappointed them big-time. Now that you know this, here are some ways to prevent ugly disappointment from poor quality photographers in Nigeria.
Disappointed by My Wedding Photographer: Newlywed Shares Her Horror Story
WHAT TO DO
- Hire a professional photographer who you’ve done a background check on, seen and liked their work and also heard good reviews from other people who have used them before.
- Prepare to pay more for a good, tried and tested photographer that many people attest to, instead of of a cheaper one. Good photography is not cheap. Good photography is not cheap, so treat your wedding photography budget just as you treat other top priority wedding things. We wrote a post on many reasons why you should hire a top professional wedding photographer. Definitely check it out.
- Avoid the ‘2 for the price of 1’ mentality. What I mean is that you should not jump at the offer of wedding pictures and videos for the price that others charge for only photos or only video coverage. Some who took this kind of too-good-to-be-true discounts wish someone warned them at the time.
- Just because a photographer showed you great pictures he did from other weddings, or displayed on Instagram, does not mean he was the one that snapped them. Do your due diligence.
Choosing A Wedding Photographer: 10 Tips to Avoid Disappointment and Mistakes
7. Avoid Aso-ebi Gifts Drama
This one is for brides who plan on selling their own aso-ebi fabrics and also giving gifts to friends who made a purchase. If you don’t plan this well, you are likely to have everyone on your neck for the aso-ebi gift.
Here’s a common story from brides. After the wedding day, people who wore your aso-ebi could still be calling you for their gifts, even the ones that didn’t buy the fabric from you. Some of these ‘fake buyers’ joined up with their friend to buy one cloth bundle. So that their friend is the only one you knew to buy aso-ebi wedding guests’ uniform-fabric, and you have already given her a gift. Now the one with the half aso-ebi also wants a gift.
That sounds funny, but it happens and here are tips to prevent it from even happening to you.
WHAT TO DO
- Give out the ‘aso-ebi buyers’ gifts’ at the time you are collecting money from the person and giving them their fabric. Not later. That way, no person will later disturb your peace (for gifts) after your wedding day.
Photo by Atunbi Photography @theatunbiexperience/ Instagram
Final Takeaways For a No-Disappointments and No-Surprises Wedding in Nigeria
Everyone loves a surprise, but only a good one. Ugly surprises or disappointments make a wedding look unplanned to your guests. You could have prevented known disappointments if you knew how. At weddings, sometimes, ugly surprises happen, and they come in different forms.
In Nigeria, we see wedding receptions where the venue was noticeably hot or the music stopped because NEPA (power outage) struck, or guests were going outside to find toilets because there was not enough in the venue or they were dirty.
There are even more stories of different unexpected things that spoiled the fun at Nigerian weddings (we’ll talk about them down this article). One of the reasons why planning is key with weddings is so that you can prevent every possible form of “things that could go wrong” or ‘ugly surprises to expect’ – which are revealed down this post.
Finally, know that a few unexpected small things just kind of happen at almost every wedding, such as the bride herself or one of her bridesmaids caught a headache or running stomach, or your wedding gown got torn on the side, or a button fell off the groom’s shirt.
To help you take care of those kinds of (unexpected, but expected) ugly wedding surprises and more, ensure to to to your wedding with a wedding emergency kit. Your chief bridesmaid can keep it somewhere and get it out if any emergency arises. That way, your team can quickly fix any small emergencies without any guest knowing, and your wedding will appear flawless.
I like to think that a wedding emergency kit to keep a fire extinguisher in the home or office after one has implemented fire prevention measures. Think of it – in this post, you got the ugly wedding surprises precautionary measures to do, and we pointed you to go get our bridal emergency kit.
Conclusion
Having a list of likely wedding planning mistakes in Nigeria that other couples have made is where to start from. Also be armed with recommended actions to take to avoid them. Many brides who plan their own weddings are not aware of this. Unfortunately, the lack of a knowledge of things that could go wrong always leads to ‘had I known’ regrets after a wedding.
Please don’t let any avoidable disappointments spoil your wedding fun. In this post, I tried to do a roundup of the things that could go wrong at any wedding in Nigeria, even at big weddings. We already know some of them and those can be avoided if you follow the above steps in this post. Praying and wishing them out is good but still work (do something to prevent them) and also pray.
So, there you have it for our 7 things that went wrong at (some) other people’s Nigerian wedding and what to do to avoid ugly disappointments at your own event. Now that you know, if you slack to implement the preventive measures listed in this post, do not say I did not warn you o.
You shall not cry “Had I known’ after your wedding – it will not be your portion. Anyways, I trust you will take action on the above tips and advice, and you’ll have a no-surprises wedding in Nigeria.
This post is part of a series, so you will benefit by reading the other two parts: top Nigerian wedding mistakes and costly wedding cake mistakes Nigerian brides wished they did not make and smart tips to spend less to have an impressive (not shabby) wedding cake.
Your turn now: Have you attended a Nigerian wedding where some things did not go well and it was noticeable? Is any of the ugly wedding surprises described above something you have seen? tell me in the comments below.
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