Are you engaged and preparing for your white wedding, but need a to-do list to stay organized? In this post, I created a Nigerian white wedding planning checklist as a ready-made plan you can use right away. You see, planning a wedding is overwhelming and stressful whether you’re the bride or groom, especially if you’re planning on your own without the help of a wedding planner. You need a planning checklist to stay organized and sane because there’s so much to do before the wedding day. Use our step by step Nigerian white-wedding-planning checklist of things to do before and up to your big day. This white wedding checklist is organized in a month-by-month calendar form and is guaranteed to keep you organized. Read on and print a copy to check off activities when done.
Scroll down for the complete to-do list for Nigerian white wedding.
Any wedding planner will advise that keeping a planning checklist or to-do list of the things you need to do is crucial to ensure you get everything done before it’s too late. Most Nigerian couples spend 12 months (from after their engagement) to plan their weddings, but not everyone likes to wait that long to get married. If you prefer a short-engagement or simply just want to plan your wedding in a short time-frame, we have a checklist on how to plan a Nigerian wedding in 3 months or less. This checklist in this article is scheduled over a 12-month timeframe. It is your month by month wedding planning countdown calendar, in a to-do list format, to guide you through the steps to preparing for a white wedding, down to every last detail. Your Nigerian white wedding planning checklist starts below:
Immediately After Your Engagement (Things to Do)
- Congrats, your guy has proposed! It’s time to have an engagement party OR just take some time to soak in the reality that you’re now nearly-married. Enjoy the moment, and don’t rush to start planning the wedding so soon.
- (For Groom) While you’re still enjoying your engagement, start researching arrangements for your customary marriage introduction, bride price, and traditional engagement list. We created a special checklist to help you stay organized before and up to your Nigerian traditional wedding day.
MORE WEDDING PLANNING GUIDES:
- Bride Price and Traditional Engagement Lists (Grooms’ Guide): Yoruba List | Igbo List | Edo (Eshan) List
- Nigerian Traditional Wedding Planning Checklist
- How to Have Your Traditional and White Wedding on the Same Day (includes a sample program of the event)
10 to 12 Months to Your Wedding Date: White Wedding Checklist
1. Pick a date for the white wedding, as well as the court registry wedding
2. The Place: Decide on the wedding location (what country, state?)
3. The Look & Feel – Define the tone, style and colour combination for your Nigerian white wedding (Write Your Wedding Dreams on Paper). This is where you write down your wedding dreams on paper. I’ll provide you some guide here, but our wedding pre-planning quiz for engaged couples goes deep into walking you through step by step, to fleshing out your wedding style, necessary for perfecting your wedding day look and feel. This exercise will tell you the right words to describe your wedding wants to your vendors – in a way that they will better get it.
Very detailed. Very helpful.
Thanks for the feedback.
Thanks a lot for this! This site is very helpful.
I have a budget of 800 for my wedding. So I’m thinking of doing a reception to cover both trad and white in a hall far from the house. I don’t know how to go about it because i want to wear both traditional wear and a wedding dress. Do i come from church and dance before doing the igba nkwu or ….how? How do people do it?
Hello Becky. Thanks for the feedback – I’m glad you found NaijaGlamWedding tips helpful.
I have a reply for you below, and also wrote a detailed post to help you answer those questions and also included a sample program of events when having a traditional and white wedding on the same day (be sure to read it).
Here’s are some tips to go about having both a white wedding and trad (Igba Nkwu) on the same day:
-The couple go from church to the reception venue
-Couple dance into the reception, in their white wedding attires (short dance)
-MC introduces the event
-The wedding cake is cut; toast is made
-The couple have a short dance and dance out for outfit change to their trad wedding attire (this should be very quick)
-While guests are waiting, cake slices are served with/ without small chops
That’s how I have seen most couples do it. There are more details and a checklist of steps in that post I wrote for you (links above).
I hope that helps you.
Thank you so much! Really helpful.. I’m no longer confused. Hayy 🙆
You;re welcome, Faith. I’m happy to be of help.
All the best, darling!
Thanks so much for this Stella. I’m glad I read this. Can’t afford a wedding planner, but with this I can now plan with my fiance, a few trusted friends and family members without being too stressed out on my day. Thanks for making this readily available
Awesome! Happy to hear that, Becca. Be sure to read our other posts intended to guide you self-plan your Nigerian wedding. >On that D-day, you’ll need someone else to co-ordinate everything, so you can relax and enjoy being the bride -so, also read our Ultimate Guide for Planning Your no-hassle, Wedding Day Coordination.
>You would also benefit from our guide on how to self-plan a classy wedding reception (click).
Hope those help. Feel free to read our other related wedding planning guides (some are linked and referenced within this article and every other).
You are simply amazing Stella. OK I am engaged to my fiance who isn’t NIGERIAN, he is white, so he is coming sometimes in May to do the introduction and have us do a court wedding, first question
(1) since he doesn’t know about our tradition and all that’s expected to be done and said on the introduction rites, (and he s coming down alone) what can be done,?so he doesn’t do or say something wrong on that day.
(2)after the introduction, can we do the court wedding without having paid the bride price?
(3)Can the bride price be paid on the day of introduction?
Forgot to mention am igbo, both parents are in Lagos.And if he goes back, he s due back again in August, I don’t want to do anything big, I just want to have a feel of the traditional setting decorate a venue take pictures with my different attires and have a little reception for a guest of 100people, any guide on how to pull this off and still have something classy. Help a sister Biko.
Hi Ugonna,
I’m glad to have you around – thanks for reading, and also for leaving a comment. Now onto your questions – see my reply below:
– (1) You said your husband-to-be does not know about our customs, and asked what can be done: I think you should familiarize him in advance with Igbo and Nigerian marriage customs and customary wedding rites. We wrote an a series of articles on exactly that, and have got great feedbacks from grooms at home and abroad who used that post to know everything there is to know before their Igbo traditional wedding, or meeting their inlaws for the first time.
==> get him to read this article and the 3 posts that make up rest of the series: Everything a non-Igbo Groom Needs to Know Before His Marriage Introduction or Traditional Wedding Day
Everything a non-Igbo Groom Needs to Know Before His Marriage Introduction or Traditional Wedding Day
=>Preparing to Meet Your Igbo Inlaws: Process Explained for Non-Igbo Grooms
=> What Happens During the Igba Nkwu – Grooms’ Guide
What Happens During the Igba Nkwu – Grooms’ GuidePreparing to Meet Your Igbo Inlaws: Process Explained for Non-Igbo Grooms
– (2) When to Do the Court Wedding: Yes, people do court wedding after the introduction (before payment of the bride price). It’s done, although that is the usual; but where the groom and maybe bride are coming from afar and do not have much time to spend, it is done to quicken things – but be sure to let your family know that in advance, and that he would do pay bride price soon after.
– (3) Yes, the bride price can be paid on same day of Introduction. Again, this is not usual but done when the couple or one of them is coming from afar and do not have a lot of time to spend or space things.
**You mentioned that your parents live in Lagos and that’s where you plan to have your trad wedding. My dear, that is also done these days. The number of guests (100) you’re planning for the reception (sort of, Igba Nkwu) is more than enough; there’s no rule about the number – most people even do it a parlour size. I suggest that you just make it a PARTY all the way, no casual thing – because 100 guests is big enough to make it classy. Hire a good photographer team (because it’s what speaks after the day is gone), hire an MC (or get a smooth-talking family member or friend to handle this), hire a DJ.
My sister had hers last year and she said she wanted it small and her Yoruba inlaws were more than 30 that travelled all the way – add that to our family and friends and you have about a hundred. So, we thought “this is already a party crowd, why not make it count”. So, we quickly changed plans that day – and hired a music band, canopies, and MC and a photographer – which were not in her initial plan or interest. And she loved it!
So, my dear, you’re already on the right track.
This is a very comprehensive wedding list. Thanks for making it readily available!
Thanks for the feedback, Jessica. I’m glad to know this post helped you.
Stella, I feel like I should get married now. you did a fine job opening my mind.
Hahaha, Atuba. I’m glad I did – getting married is a good thing na. We here love featuring weddings, and your own is now on the line.
Thanks for reading. Hope to see you around.
Hi, great article,what would be ur advice for some1 that has just 3 months to plan for a court wedding and reception,low budget about 500k, so can’t afford a planner?
Hi Eve,
Here are my tips:
1) To-Do List: Use the above wedding planning checklist, BUT do things in a quarter of the time (say, where you see 4 weeks, do yours in 1 week).
2) Low Budget Wedding Tips: Click here to see and follow our tips on how to save costs during wedding planning
3) Wedding Budget Examples: Click here to see an example of a N500k wedding budget – see if you can pick an idea from there (not compulsory) or customise it to suit you.
4) Start by breaking down how you want to spend that N500k. That breakdown should be your spending guide – and try to stick to it, in order to avoid overspending. CLICK HERE to see our step by step guide on how to do a wedding budget from scratch.
BONUS TIPS:
–Steps to organize a wow wedding reception
–21 steps to follow when planning a wedding
Hope the above tips help.
Hello Stella,thank you for this wonderful post. Please is it possible have my book launch on the same day of my wedding. Thank you
Thank you too, Okive – we love hearing feedback from our readers.
Absolutely! Yes, it’s possible to launch your book on your wedding day but there are pros and cons. Your wedding day could be a great opportunity because you’re going to have a huge crowd of people. But then that depends on whether your wedding crowd is the same type of people that would be interested in the topics in your book, and whether they are the kind of audience that would readily buy.
*On another note, you don’t want people to think that you’re using your wedding to ‘twist them’ into parting with money to you. You know how some Naija people can feel.
*On another thought, I’d say that you should launch before your wedding day, so that your launch day is targeted at selling some of your books and focusing publicity on your book alone. AND announce/ show the book to your wedding guests, as part of the programme – so that guests get an idea that you’re not there to sell but just to announce to them and let them know where the book is available in case they need to buy.
This was very helpful,thanks a lot. but what if you don’t have that much time to plan? i want to know how possible it is to plan within a short time of 6months. thanks again.
Hi Helen, thanks for reading our white wedding checklist. Now to answering your two questions:
Q. If you don’t have time to plan your wedding, here are 2 things you can do:
1) Hire someone else / an event planner who has the time to plan it for you, and do all the waka/ legwork.
2) OR Scale down your wedding to a more manageable size. Small weddings can be planned better in s short time – whether it’s a low-key weddings or one with few guests and low budget.
Q. Is it possible to plan a wedding in 6 months?
ANSWER: Absolutely. Yes, it is possible. You can use our above wedding planning checklist timeline, BUT then where you have 12 months, use 6 months; and where you have 4 weeks, use 2 weeks. The idea is to half all the suggested time durations for all activities.
*If you can start off by booking your venue, and then booking your most important vendors, you would have less to worry about. Also ensure to send out your invitations early.
Hi am yin am not igbo girl but my bf igbo i need to know about the tradetion about wedding.what is the firts step to do let say exampla am a igbo girl. What is the firts wedding 2nd is engage . after tradational wedding the brides need to take the groom him house ? And after wedding what is the nxt step
Dear Yin, you can find about everything you need to know about the steps involved in Igbo traditional marriage events here (click). Hope you know that in Nigeria, the man goes to marry the woman in her own people’s traditional wedding customs (not that man’s).
stella you re such a blessing. God bless you real good.
Thanks, Emeka. I’m glad that this post helped ease your wedding stress.
You’re simply the best! Thank You!!!
You’re welcome, Helen. Happy wedding-planning:)