During wedding planning, many Nigerian couples have unanswered questions about how to budget for their weddings and how to make it work, especially if they are short on cash. Because Nigerian weddings are traditionally known to have hundreds of guests, today’s young couples are silently afraid of fixing the wedding date, for fear that their saved-up cash may not be enough. On this blog, we are usually asked by our readers planning for their Nigerian weddings, especially the men who are eager to make the next move (from engaged to married) but stuck on how to make their wedding budget work. After getting replies from happy readers who used our tips and advice to move forward, we thought to write a post with our answers on the 11 Frequently Asked Questions about budgeting for weddings in Nigeria. Read on.
Examples of some of the questions we get from our readers, asking wedding budgeting questions include: ‘I have N400k for my wedding, I need ideas to make it work?’; ‘how should I ask my parents to contribute to my wedding?’; ‘my friend did her wedding with N250k, can I also do the same?’; ‘will N300k be enough for a wedding in Nigeria?’. Those are just a few of the regular wedding budget questions we get asked (always). It’s time to answer them and other related questions in this post. Hopefully, you may also find yours answered.
#1. How Much Does a Nigerian Wedding Really Cost?
Someone asked me this “how much does a Nigerian wedding cost on average?”. The person was asking because they want to use the ‘average’ cost of a Nigerian wedding to plan their own wedding. My answer is: don’t do that. Any average may be more than or less than what you can realistically afford. You should be asking: ‘I have N500k and want to have 100 guests, how can I make that work?’.
Everyone’s pocket and bank account size are different, so their wedding budget cannot be the same. Everyone’s taste and class are different also. Someone may have N500k and have a wedding with 200 people, another may have N500k and have a wedding with only 100 guests. Someone may have N200k and have a wedding with 50 guests. So, every Saturday in Nigeria, people with diverse tastes and budgets have weddings.
Are You Realistic?
What matters more is setting a realistic guest list count for any amount of money you’re planning a wedding with. What will make the amount of money you have enough or not enough is how realistic you keep your wants:
- The number of guests you want: Is the number realistic for your budget? Can your money cater to all of them? If not, reduce the guest count to match your pocket.
- Class of venue you want: Is your taste realistic? Can your budget afford it, and still have some change to cater to the other wedding things?
How much should I spend on my Wedding?
Unless you tell me how much your monthly salary is, and how many people you want to invite and how much you have in your savings account, I cannot tell you how much to spend on your own wedding.
I received a couple of questions from some brides asking to know how much they could spend on a small wedding, and I told them that ‘only you can say how much your wedding will cost’. And you cannot use another bride’s wedding as a yardstick to measure your upcoming wedding, because you do not have the same budget.
Instead of telling you an exact Naira amount of how much to spend on every wedding stuff, what any professional wedding planner who knows his/ her onions will do is to ask you how much you want to spend overall, and then guide you on how to allocate the wedding budget you have to elements of your wedding.
MORE SMALL & BUDGET WEDDING PLANNING TIPS:
- How to Plan a Big-Girl Wedding with Small Budget
- How to Plan a Small Wedding in Nigeria (that Will Wow Your Guests)
- How to Plan a Low-Key Nigerian Wedding (Simple but Practical Tips)
#2. Why Should I Budget for My Wedding?
The reason why you should make a wedding budget is to have a guide when you start shopping and paying vendors, or even bargaining – so that you will not overspend beyond your pocket.
#3. Does Low Budget Mean My Wedding will be Low Quality?
No. There can be elegance in small (budget) when it comes to weddings. And careful planning and budgeting are what achieves it.
FACT: A small wedding budget is nothing to be ashamed of. Having a big budget is not a guarantee that the wedding will be successful. Even weddings that are planned with a huge amount of money also flop. What really matters is knowing how to use your money, or in this case – how to allocate your break down your budget appropriately, how to know the number of guests your budget can cater to. Finally, you have to stick to inviting only the number of guests your budget can feed (instead of randomly fixing any number).
DONT’S:
- Do not start by saying how many people you want to invite, instead, know how many people you can feed and that your venue can accommodate. Instead, start with making a budget for an entire wedding, and then split your budget to allocate a sum to wedding catering (food and drinks), which tells you how many guests to invite.
We have seen big-budget weddings that are a flop, and small intimate weddings that are elegant and totally unforgettable. So, you can have a great wedding at any amount, even a small budget.
Just so you know, a small wedding does not mean that it was planned on a low budget, and there are some things you can do to use a small budget to achieve a big-looking wedding (that only you know you spent small budget putting together). We even wrote a series of articles to help you understand what it means ‘to have a small or low-key wedding’ and also clarify the two types of small weddings that couples everywhere (including Nigerians) choose to have:
- The 2 Types of Small Weddings (Which One is Your Style?)
#4. How to start budgeting for a wedding?
The very first step is to set an amount you can afford to spend on the entire wedding, and then break that down into several other wedding expenses.
I have written an in-depth, step by step post on this and you can read it to learn how to make a wedding budget from scratch.
About Stella Anokam
Wedding budget of 3million
What’s your question?