Weddings and Ceremonies.

Hello everyone!

Like I said in my previous post, I visited Lagos, Nigeria. I went to see family, friends and for one very important set of ceremonies- my sister’s wedding.

It was my first time being on a wedding train as an adult and I was the chief bridesmaid! I was super excited to be a part of the wedding, I did not realize however how stressful wedding planning could be until I experienced a minute portion of it when I got home. After my quarantine, I started my traipsing around Lagos state for numerous wedding things that pertained to me. I had initially spent a long time looking for a dress to wear, and I could not find any online that fit the vibe that my mother, my sister and I were going for. We wanted fabulous but not enough to overshadow the bride, and this was surprisingly difficult to find. I then decided I was going to have it sewn in Nigeria, but finding a style in such a short period was proving stressful. We then decided as a last resort to hit the streets and we went to Balogun Market in Lagos. We went from store to store searching, but apparently finding my size was rare, as most of the stores stocked larger sizes. We were about to give up and settle for a purple dress I saw but was not a huge fan of (it had a waist cape, long sleeves and a very high neck, and did not at all fit what I wanted) when we saw some more stores on the other side of the road. We crossed the road and entered this narrow dimly lit street (it felt like we were going into a secret location or something) and found more stores that sold a lot more. My mum and I finally found what we had been searching for. We saw 2 that fit our vision and we got those after I had tried them on for size. I wore one of them for the wedding and I can confidently say I looked amazing in the dress on the wedding day.

You already saw the outfit in the last post, so I am not putting the image again. Cheers.

My family members came from all over and we all stayed in hotels close to the church and the reception venue because of Lagos traffic, and so the makeup artist, hairstylist, photographers and videographers came over to the hotel as early as 6am to get my sister and the rest of us ready as well as capture preparation moments for pictures and videos.

For the wedding ceremonies, my sister’s traditional wedding ceremony was in the morning, the church ceremony was in the afternoon with the reception that ended at night. In my culture, the bride usually wears coral beads adorning her neck and hair and wrists.

My sister did a toned-down version of the traditional outfit because she wanted minimum issues when changing into her white wedding gown.

Her white wedding dress was also minimalist as that was her preferred style. As the maid of honour I was quite occupied with ensuring the bride did not have any issues, and so during the white wedding I was focused on her. During the reception I spent a lot more time running around, going on errands and trying to visit with friends and family.

All wedding images are by the amazing Timi Oshin Studios.

The wedding was amazing and I had a good time. The venue was immaculately decorated and the day was captured by the photographers and videographers.

About a week later my cousin had her introduction- this is usually the first ceremony where the families meet and everyone introduces themselves. It is not usually a very big ceremony, there is always food and the families meet themselves officially. Another cousin had a baby dedication, so we all turned up to that as well.

I was really excited to have been part of all these and not miss out on important events that bring the whole family together. Due to covid, many of us had not seen for a while, so summer 2021 was also a kind of reunion for us.