The “white” wedding dress
Let me tell you the truth. I don’t like wedding dresses. That kind of dress has never been my style, so this was a part I was least excited about but also the part where I expected the most- I’ve watched a lot of Say Yes To the Dress .
In my imagination, I had an outsized number of family and friends going dress shopping with me. In reality, that entourage is probably facilitated by the bride. Did I facilitate it? no. So did I have an entourage? no. I dragged my mum and my sister to a dress shop in New York, my mum proclaimed the first dress I tried on as her favourite and then went to buy water in a pharmacy down the road. My sister was only mildly interested. To be honest, the three of us were underwhelmed. In the end, I decided it was too early to commit.
In London, my aunties sent me links to shops and dresses and reminded me I needed to get it out of the way, but still, no one offered to shop with me. Again, did I say “hey guys, can you please come shopping with me because this whole thing is long and kind of overwhelming.” I did not.
In the end, I went dress shopping one time with a friend that was also getting married. The dresses suited my price point and my taste (to the extent that wedding dresses could suit my taste) but I kept feeling like there was something missing, so I didn’t buy a dress.
When I got back to Lagos, a lot of people started to remind me that I should be losing weight for the wedding. On some level, it occurred to me that it was why I hadn’t bought a dress. There was a part of me when I was shopping that was thinking “if I still have to lose weight before the wedding, do I have to commit to a dress now?”
I hired a personal trainer and tried and failed to start a diet. I got really fit and lost some weight, but my body didn’t change substantially. The wedding was getting closer and I still didn’t have a dress. I went with a friend to a very popular dress vendor in Lagos. When the owner walked into the store, she said to me “you’re too big to have left it so late.” I looked at her, speechless. I know Nigerians pride themselves in their rude honesty, but I was honestly speechless. I tried on two dresses and the sample dresses were honestly filthy - I hated them.
By now, it was too months to my wedding, and I had no dress.
I found a random tailor, bought 6 yards of white wedding satin, 15 yards of soft tulle and asked her to make me a dress. The tailor kept asking if it was a wedding dress and, in the end, she adjusted some things so it wouldn’t be ideal as a wedding dress. I honestly didn’t care. I think by this time, I was looking forward to the day after the wedding. Nothing bothered me anymore. Now that it was close, my family were concerned that I was going to look trash and kept seeking alternate options to my imperfect dress. I wasn’t interested. The day before the wedding, the counsellor assigned to us in church said that the top of my wedding dress was too sheer. Cue two of my friends hand sewing pieces of fabric on top of my cover up to make it less sheer. Nightmare. In the end, I was just glad when the church service was over, and I could move on.
Reception dress
The reception dress seemed like it was going to go way better at first. My aunt offered to sort it out. The first person we went to, her long-time friend and brilliant designer added so many extra zeroes to the end of her usual price, it was ridiculous. Eventually, we went to another designer who also sold fabric and bought some fabric. The fabric came first, style later. By this time, I was used to the designers telling me to make sure I lost weight in time for my final fitting.
By the time price and fabric were confirmed, the designer said I would have to buy more fabric for my dress style. This fabric was already super expensive, so there was no way I was doing that, so I offered to find fabric myself to mix in. Eventually, I bought fabric and dropped it at the studio. A couple of days later, no one had reached out to me. I followed up and was told that the fabric wouldn’t match. We made adjustments to the style. Remember, I was on a tight deadline here? After weeks of back and forth (oh you need to come back to fit with a different bra, oh I don’t know if this style would work for your body type), I went to the studio to ask what was happening. I left the studio and they called me and asked me to come and pick up my fabric because they refused to work with me. If I was reading this story on someone else’s blog, I would think “there has to be more to the story.” There wasn’t. They just chose to be crazy, which, as I found out during wedding planning is very common.
I picked up the fabric and it was now less than a month to my wedding.
About 10 days before the wedding, I convinced the designer that made my traditional wedding outfit to make my reception dress. In that time, they had to do a calico fitting (basically, using plain cotton to make the dress and adjusting it perfectly to my measurements and then using that as a pattern so the actual dress wouldn’t need adjusting) and also complete the dress. It was fantastic, fit perfectly and they delivered it to my house. I would absolutely recommend them. Their prices are good, their work is great, and their customer service is unbelievable.
One more thing about this dress thing. My aunt suggested I go to a designer to ask about my second dress. First of all, her consultation fee was N60,000 (refundable against a purchase, non-refundable with no purchase) and then when she costed the dress (with my fabric and a discount) she wrote out the price for me in a blue bic biro- N850,000. That was the most unbelievable thing that happened in this whole experience. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Surprised does not begin to cover how I felt. Needless to say, I wrapped my fabric into my paper carrier bag, said my thanks and ran out of her store like my life depended on it.
Traditional Outfit
My traditional wedding outfit was a much better experience. My mum bundled me in the car one morning and took me to Bisbod. We looked at different kinds of aso oke and colours and picked a colour and a finish everyone was happy with. I got it way ahead of the scheduled delivery time, it looked exactly how I wanted and Bisbod did a fantastic job. Bisbod recommended the designer that made me outfit and I had zero complaints or problems with them. They even came to my house on the day of the wedding to dress me. My traditional outfit was the best I looked and felt in the whole wedding experience.
My shoes for the traditional were also the first pair of shoes I bought for the wedding. I took the shoes to pick the fabric and that’s part of how we arrived at the colour. I bought three pairs of shoes for the wedding but ended up wearing only the ones for the traditional and then my mum’s shoes on the white wedding day.
Court Wedding and Nikkah (yes I had 4 weddings)
For my court wedding, I wore an old dress.
For my nikkah, I wore what would have been my second outfit for the traditional if I changed.
Hair, Make-up and accessories
When I started asking vendors for the price of hair and make-up, I just knew that it wasn’t going to click for me. There was no way I was spending x10 or x15 my normal hair price for the wedding. On the day, I asked my cousin to help me put it up and that was that.
Another cousin is a make-up artist and doing my make-up for free was her wedding gift to me.
I asked my friend that recently got married for her veil- in fact, I asked two friends for their veils and chose one on the day.
I know my experience is no where near typical, brides usually spend a lot more and care a lot more about their outfit. My aunties kept saying “what about the pictures?” but my thought was “I’ve taken pictures before and I will take pictures again” so that’s honestly not a consideration for spending ridiculous amounts of money on a dress or hair or accessories for one day or even a few hours.
What would I do different?
My hair. I would have it done in a professional ponytail a few days before the wedding in a regular salon. I would have bought my church dress on asos. I think those are the only two things I would have done differently. I woke up the day after the white wedding and did not regret a single kobo spent. That to me was worth everything.
One more thing, I would have asked for help more and not felt like I was alone in all of it, because that was in my head.
Saying all this, I want to stress a few things:
1. These things weren’t important to me personally, if they were, I would have put more thought and effort into it and I think everyone should absolutely prioritise without apology, the things that are important to them during their wedding.
2. I made impulsive decisions about my church dress because I knew it was coming off as soon as the church service was over. I had absolutely no emotional attachment to it. My reception dress cost x5 times more, and my traditional outfit was in the range of my reception dress outfit.
3. I’ve been a bridesmaid TEN times (ridiculous, I know) and along the way, I kind of figured out what was worth it and what wasn’t for me. Brides often regret at least one of their dresses, their hair, random accessories and the price of their make-up.
4. Looking back on it now, none of it mattered at all. I was so happy on all of the days and grateful to every single person that came with me to fittings and brainstormed solutions and sent me their veils and stayed up most of the night hand sewing and offering to buy me a dress- there was so much love in the process, it was just different to how I imagined it at first.