How to Plan a Low-Key Wedding in Nigeria: 8 Ideas that Work

Planning a classy, low-key wedding on a tight budget is a difficult task even for experienced wedding planners.  The fact is that you can make the most of a wedding, irrespective of how much budget it is planned with. The secret lies in setting your priorities, using things that you already have, as well as asking for help from people around you and being creative. In this article, you will discover 8 easy to follow steps to planning a classy, low-key wedding in Nigeria. Read on.

Photo credit: Wedding Photography by Dotun

 

8 Low Key Wedding Ideas for Small Weddings that Look Like a Million Bucks

Low key weddings are becoming popular in Nigeria, with celebrities taking the lead. Singers, Simi, Tiwa Savage and Tuface all their Nigerian weddings as low key as possible – a small guest list.  You too can have a low-key wedding. Just follow the steps below to plan your own low-key wedding flawlessly:

#1. Make a Wedding Shopping List

To further help you avoid the usual impulsive overspending and stick to your budget, start off by making a list of things to buy, rent or hire for the wedding.

#2. Make a Wedding To-Do List and Timeline

Make a checklist of wedding tasks to do before the wedding date. Add a deadline to each task, so that you know what needs to be done and when. Timelines for activities in your wedding checklist should be scheduled before your wedding date, starting from after your engagement. Our traditional wedding checklist and our white wedding checklist to keep yourself organized and keep your to-do-tasks in-view.  It’s important to start this process as early as possible so that you’ll avoid last-minute stress while taking advantage of sales discounts you find.  Here are some of our wedding planning resources that will save you time and keep you organized:

• 3-Month Wedding Planning Checklist
• Same-Day Traditional and White Wedding Checklist and Program
• All our wedding checklists, templates and worksheets – there’s no time to re-invent the wheel, just use our ready-made wedding planning tools. It’s plug and play.

#3. Ask For Help

No matter how small a wedding will be, it would still involve lots of details and logistics, and you can’t do everything alone. You’ll need lots of help to organize your wedding. You can either pay for hired helps or get it for free by asking friends and family.

If you have extra cash or don’t have either time or close friends and family available to help you with implementing the wedding plans, hire a professional wedding planner to help you achieve and implement a tight plan – wedding planners usually have cheaper packages when they are hired to coordinate just the week of your wedding (that’s if you can’t afford the full package, ask them to help you coordinate the wedding week or day).

But, if you don’t have a wedding planner budget, start early and put together your own wedding planning team – ask friends to gift you helping hands instead of wedding gifts. Ask for help from your bridesmaids, groomsmen, resourceful family and friends. Good friends and family are always there and waiting to help, and would save you a lot of money if you use them.

Other areas you can get help, during wedding planning, on include: 

• The wedding catering – ask your mom, her friends, your aunts, your village women’s meeting. Instead of paying wedding vendors for the reception catering, ask talented friends and family members to gift you their time and service for your wedding. Ask them to help you cook the wedding food, make the small chops, wedding cake, chin-chin and so on.  You can also ask a few Aunts to support you by bringing a cooler each of additional cooked food to supplement what you’ll provide.
• The wedding cake and snacks – ask your friends and close family members
• Venue decoration – ask your church members or friends
• Recommendation to good vendors, as well as putting in a word for them to give you discounts

NOTE: If your wedding reception venue would be in a hotel, know that most hotels require you to purchase all your food and drinks from them. So, be sure to ask them for the quotes on how much the catering would cost for the number of guests you expect.

• RELATED: Bridesmaid’s Duties and Responsibilities

#4. Keep Your Attendants (Bridesmaids and Groomsmen) Few

Having a few people to work with makes managing people and things easier, and stress minimal. Since you’re talking of a small wedding with a few guests, it’s appropriate to have a few bridesmaids and groomsmen. Cut down the number of bridesmaids and groomsmen – maybe, just have a best-man and chief bridesmaid, and maybe one flower girl. Note that it’s the norm for bridesmaids and groomsmen to buy their own outfits, although the couple get to choose the colours and styles/designs. However, be attentive to their comfort – it may be best to let them choose the dress styles in the colour you want. And don’t ask them to buy a really expensive outfit just because you’re the bride.

• Top 100 Aso-ebi Styles and Colours – Best Fashion Seen at Big Nigerian Weddings
• Pictures of the Best Bridesmaids Dresses – Glam Ideas for Brides
• The Hottest Bridesmaid dresses trends in Nigeria

#5. Keep the Meal Style Simple

When deciding whether to serve a buffet or sit-down meal, consider the size of your wedding venue. If the venue is small, don’t do the buffet, as there may not be enough space to set the buffet stations. Be sure to have multiple serving stations if you want to serve buffet-style meals, so that you don’t have your guests queuing for food for too long – and getting annoyed.

If you want to serve sit-down meals, be sure to have an adequate number of servers, so that the item #7 (menu time) does not go on forever. If you don’t have plenty friends and family to serve food to guests, instead of paying servers, you may be able to save a little money by having a buffet instead of a sit-down, as buffet style meals use fewer servers and so will cost less.

#6. Limit (Food) Menu Options

Remember when deciding on what food to have at your wedding that you consider the prices.  Keep the menu options small and limit the variety of food served – only serve the essential party food that most Nigerians love. Instead of serving a six-course meal, consider only three. When hiring a caterer, confirm what and what will be served for that price they’re quoting. Also, confirm if the caterer will be giving you servers for a sit-down meal or behind the buffet stations.

Know that the more options you want for your wedding catering, the more the caterers will charge you per plate of food. And if you want to keep your wedding catering budget down, stay away from offering your guests a wide variety – after all, those sort of lavish meals usually get wasted. Simply serve the usual popular Nigerian party foods that everyone likes.

• Party Jollof: Ingredients for Cooking One Bag of Rice

#7. Get Serious with the Wedding Planning

A small wedding does not mean that it’s planning will be easier; besides, it’s easier for guests to notice flaws when a wedding has few guests. No matter how small a wedding will be, it would still involve lots of details and logistics. Therefore, you need to pay attention to the details.

Don’t go about guessing what needs to be done each day you wake up – that’s the beginning of stress. Instead, start off by making a list of everything and every task that needs to be completed before your wedding day. Use a wedding planning checklist and ensure to cross-off every completed task on-the-go. Procrastination is an enemy to planning, so ensure to do what needs to be done at the due date. And delegate to distribute your to-do tasks, instead of killing yourself with wedding planning tasks and not finishing things on time.

#8. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Once you start wedding planning early, have it at the back of your mind that you’re going to have the most beautiful wedding, because you’re doing everything you can. Also, assume that something small may go wrong (not as planned) at the last minute, but have the mindset that it wouldn’t reduce the beauty of your wedding. Besides, one of your bridesmaids/ groomsmen/ family members would take care of it. So, there’s nothing for you to worry or stress about – isn’t that why you’re spending time and effort to plan the wedding in advance?

Guess what? Something usually went wrong in the most amazing weddings we see on TV but no one notices. The ‘trick’ that wedding planners use is to pack a wedding emergency kit and keep it in the wedding venue, in order to quickly take care of any ugly situation that emerges, before anyone notices.  You too can use that same trick of the pros – keep a bridal emergency kit handy.  Find time to relax in-between days of planning and use other known ways to deal with wedding planning anxiety and stress.

MORE WEDDINGS-ON-A-BUDGET GUIDES:

• Everything About Planning a Small Wedding in Nigeria
• Expensive Wedding Reception Mistakes to Avoid
• 9 Things to Do to Instantly Cut Down Wedding Costs
• Low Budget Wedding: 9 More Ways to Save Cost
• 11 Fun Ways to Transform a Cheap Cake to Look Expensive
• How to Save Money on Wedding Cakes
• Wedding Cake Budgeting Mistakes to Avoid

Planning a Low-Key Wedding: Final Thoughts

Low-key weddings can be elegant if you take measures to keep your options simple and small – you would save cost and still impress your guests. Hope you found our 8 tips to organize a low-key wedding in Nigeria helpful? This post is a part of our series of ideas on how to plan small weddings in Nigeria.

That’s it for our tips on how to plan a low key wedding in Nigeria. Now, it’s your turn to talk to us: share your own low key wedding ideas with us in the comments below, or tell us which of the 8 tips above you like best?