MindTalk with Imma
Dear Reader,
Welcome. Weddings are great moments. The air around wedding celebrations is different. It’s often a good time to create memories with family and loved ones.
Today, we’re going to be talking about big weddings.
In Nigeria, big weddings are better understood by a Yoruba person or an Igbo person who is a social butterfly. These are the two tribes that can describe better what they need over 700 guests for.
There are different reasons why people have big weddings: if you have a large family or friendship cycle and you care about hurting feelings, well, having a big wedding will be your best bet. I said caring about people’s feelings ‘cos that’s all that fuels having large gatherings.
If you have a social family where having a birthday party for a one-year-old is almost like a carnival, then you better start gathering money to cater for all these people on your big day.
Planning and organizing big weddings are super stressful; it’s not the kind of stress I wish to put myself through. It even makes it harder for me as someone that don’t do well with large crowds. I ask people how they cope with over 300 people at a place; like how? Is the hall not too full? Is your head not spinning? Don’t you feel like just running away and leaving all of them there? Or maybe going outside to get some air? That’s a lot for me.
Studies show that big weddings aren’t worth the stress; no matter how hard you try, you can’t please all your guests. And no matter how much you spend on food and drinks, there are certainly people who will still complain about not getting food or drink. Ask Obi Cubana, you’ll hear that people still didn’t eat at his mother’s burial. This is Nigeria.
It’s unwise to throw a big wedding party to realise money through it. I’ve heard of a couple that borrowed money to have a large wedding party with the thought that more guests translated to more money. After the wedding, they only realised 10% of the real money they spent on the wedding. Why go through all that trouble when you can have a simple wedding and live on what you have?
You would argue that event planners take care of all the stress, but we both know that it’s impossible to be calm and allow another person to make preparations for your wedding; you would always be in the event planner’s business. What if the food vendor forgets the date of the wedding? what if the decorations are not what I really want? Weddings are too personal to leave it totally in the hands of the event planners.
Well, whether you think big weddings are worth it or not, you should have a budget and stick to it. It’s unnecessary to throw a big wedding to impress people who don’t care for you in the true sense. The thing is that as Nigerians we are sentimental people and are rather interested in people we are going to hurt for not inviting them to our weddings. If you have read the book, “The subtle art of not giving a f**k” and understood it. Then maybe the sentiments would be the least of your problems.
Worthy of note is that you rather have a successful marriage than a booming wedding. Rather than breaking the bank to come home to love deprived marriages, we should focus on preparations for everlasting love.
Well, who says you can’t have both? But, you want I mean yeah?
Until next time…
Do well to check out my previous article on’ “How I want to be loved https://everyevery.ng/5-love-languages-how-i-want-to-be-loved/
With love,
Imma.
Check out https://omastylebride.com/how-do-i-start-planning-my-nigerian-wedding/