10. Make a Coordination Plan for Your Wedding Day
A wedding planning usually does this task, if you’re hiring one. However, if you’re planning your wedding on your own, you can assign a few people to oversee/ coordinate things on your wedding day (when you’ll be on the stage). These people would have to be at the wedding venues very early and leave after everyone. They’ll be making calls early to follow-up with vendors to be early to do the decoration, to set the cake, to bring the food and drinks, and so on.
- When your wedding is in high gear, these are the people that’ll be in the background quenching any fires or show-stoppers that may come up. Plan this team ahead of time; tell the people you select to do this, and spell out what you expect them to do.
- Help them know what to do as your day-of-wedding coordinator. Be sure to give your helpers (planning team) useful books or resources that could help them plan your wedding like a pro. You can ask them to read up our detailed guide on how to plan a wedding reception, and also our step by step guide on wedding day coordination checklist.
11. Regularly Follow-up on Vendors and Helpers
Follow up with your wedding planning team on a regular basis, to mark/ check off a list of work already completed and attend to issues as they arise.
12. Record Every Wedding Expense
Make a list of what you spent on and how much, making sure you stick to the budget you started with. You can start with our wedding budget list of things to buy for wedding preparation. Then print it and regularly write down every single wedding expense on that printout.
Keeping a record of wedding expenses will keep you from overspending – because at every point you know how much you have available. Besides, it’s tempting to buy every shiny thing and very easy to not stick to your wedding budget. You can if you are recording and tracking your expenses as you purchase things and pay vendors.
Wedding Expenses List: Things to Buy When Preparing for Nigerian Wedding
13. Slowly Transition Your Role As Lead Planner to Others
By 2 to 3 months before your wedding, you need to start rounding up your involvement with the wedding planning. It’s true that most brides who get too busy and less sleep up to their wedding day or week have a tendency to look stressed in their wedding photos. Oh yes, pictures don’t lie. No amount of makeup can hide a tired face and eyes.
If you hire a wedding planner, they certainly will do everything for you. Here’s how to slowly wind down on active involvement in your wedding planning, if you’re planning your wedding on your own:
4 to 8 weeks before the wedding, assign a team of your trusty pals to take over from where you stopped, and also oversee behind-the-scenes happenings and coordinate things on your big day. This has to be people who have been helping you from the start of the wedding planning – not any random person.
You need to pass on your wedding day vision to others or a planner to help you execute on the day of your wedding, while you’re busy getting married. Tell them the list of things they need to do before, during and after the religious / church joining ceremony, as well as before, during and after the reception – including the contact details of all your wedding service suppliers (vendors) and what’s left to do by them or how much left to pay them. Another option is to see if you can hire a wedding planner that offers Wedding Coordination service or part-planning.
Also, arrange to hand the final payment to the key person, for onward payment of the vendors on the wedding day (when you’ll be busy getting married). Yes, write down the list and distribute it to them.
Why You Need a Wedding Coordinator and What they Do (If You’re a DIY Bride)
14. 1 to 2 Months Before The Wedding, Stop Active Wedding Planning
Hand over the remaining things-to-do to your able personal wedding planning team or hire a wedding planner to finish it up and coordinate the wedding day. Most brides start feeling overwhelmed and totally stressed up a few months before their wedding, and so it’s best to hands off any time you feel that way. You can find a wedding planner who is ready to finish stuff up for you – it even costs less than having them start from the beginning of the planning process.
15. Start Your Wedding Beauty Treatments and Routines
Spend the last days to your wedding getting routine beauty fixes, makeup and hair trials as well as having your engagement shoot.
16. Give Your Photographer Your List Of Must-Take Wedding Day Shots
You can download and print our order of wedding photography checklist from here and then hand over to your photographer. Also, ensure to hire a professional to handle your wedding photography and avoid choosing the cheapest person, in order to avoid javing costly wedding photography regrets like this bride shared => how my wedding photographer ruined all my pictures.
17. Have An Engagement Shoot (e-shoot)
Schedule a day with your photographer, and your fiance, to get glam shots of the two of you – these would the photos that would go into several of your wedding things such as your wedding website, printed on your souvenirs, your wedding stationery and more.
18. Pack a Wedding Day Emergency Kit
Do this alone or together with your chief bridesmaid/ maid of honour and let her take custody of the kit on the wedding day. You also want to read out tips on how to guarantee that your wedding will go perfectly as planned.
19. Give Your Girls (Bridesmaids) A Treat and Bonding Time
From a few days and up to a day before your wedding, spend more time with your bridesmaids and groomsmen, going through the wedding day itinerary and making sure there’s nothing left out.
20. Do a Last-Minute Check On Things
A few days to the wedding day: Confirm things with your venues (reception and Church/ worship house), the rentals suppliers and your wedding service suppliers (vendors). Make sure they are finished or almost – and monitor them closely up to the wedding day. Note that you don’t have to do this yourself, assign the task to a trusty friend or family member.
21. Go and Get Married
It’s your wedding day. Go to your wedding ready to be a guest, knowing that your wedding day coordinator can take care of everything behind the scenes while you have fun.
There you have it on how to plan a Nigerian wedding in just 21 steps. Now, let’s talk about how you’re going to get those things done, the ‘tools’ you require. People, People, People. When preparing for a wedding, you need support. In Nigeria, people are always looking for ways to be of assistance to a bride-to-be. They are waiting for you to ask for their help. But remember, ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ – so keep your helpers few.
Involve People and Ask for Help Early: Don’t Be a Bridezilla!
Only bridezillas want to do every single thing themselves when preparing for their wedding. No successful wedding was planned by only one person. Unless you outsource your planning to a professional wedding planner, you need the help of other people to assist you to do some of the tasks in this post. Trying to carry on alone will only stress you out without any result.
The best thing to do is to delegate some of the 21 activities (in the above wedding planning to-do list) to some of your close friends, bridesmaids, and family members. Regularly follow up with everyone to find out what’s been done, what’s left and any issues they might have had. Delegation and regular communication are a guarantee for a perfect wedding. Finally, no matter how well you planned your wedding, there’s no guarantee that something will not go wrong – but you can minimize those risks by having a solid wedding day coordination plan in place.
If you get those two things right (the planning and the coordination), you can be sure that you’ll have a great wedding without stress. Lastly, get to know every possible what-could-go-wrong in a Nigerian wedding, and you are on your way to planning the Nigerian wedding of your dreams – these posts are very informative.
TOP WEDDING MISTAKES TO AVOID (SERIES):
- 11 Ways to Save Money on Wedding Cakes in Nigeria
- Choosing a Wedding Photographer (10 Tips to Avoid Disappointment)
- 8 Top Wedding Reception Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- Costly Wedding Cake Budgeting Mistakes to Avoid
Final Takeaway: Planning a Nigerian Wedding in 6 Months
After creating our wedding planning checklists and many posts detailing things to do when preparing for a Nigerian wedding, yet, almost every week, I still receive a couple of emails asking for planning tips. So, in response, I thought to write this new post, dishing out our step-checklist on how to plan a Nigerian wedding in 6 months. You could say that this is every bride’s (and groom’s) manual for planning a flawless and stress-free wedding in Nigeria.
Here’s a recap: First, you need to know that you can’t plan a wedding alone. You need other people to assist you with the pre-wedding planning and wedding day coordination. You also need to coordinate the vendors you choose to work with. If you’re too busy, hire a professional wedding planner to do the running around on your behalf.
I hope that this post helps you. Be sure to start planning early, get helpful people to help you out, and with the help of checklists and wedding templates and worksheets, you can get everything finished up in good time, without stress.
But, if you have a wedding planner, s/he will sit with you to know your wedding budget, help you breakdown that budget, draw up your wedding checklist and timeline, find wedding vendors (if you don’t know any) and follow up with them, and do all the pre-wedding running around for you. On the wedding day, your planner will coordinate the wedding (solemnization/ joining) ceremony and reception. You won’t have to lift a finger, except to walk down the aisle on the D-day.
Ensure to read all the articles that I linked to within this post – they’ll help you a great deal.
- ALSO: Nigerian Wedding Planning Scenes and Tips from SGIT Movie
- Wedding in 6 Months not for you? See our other Wedding Planning Checklists for Different Timelines OR here
- How to Plan a Nigerian Wedding in 1 Year (12 Months Checklist)
- How to Plan a Nigerian Wedding in 3 Months (90 Days Checklist)
- How to Plan a Nigerian Wedding in 1 Month (30 Days Checklist)
I hope this post will help you end your struggle with successfully organizing your Nigerian wedding in 6 months, without stress. Thanks for reading and do consider sharing this post on social media just click the share button down below).
Now, it’s your turn to talk back to me – is there any step you think I missed (above)? Comment below to tell me. Also, how are you planning or preparation for your Nigerian wedding? Which of the above steps have you already done or about to do? Leave me a comment with your reply, and let’s get the discussion continued.
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
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.