Getting Married Soon? This Is Wedding Planning Advice Worth Reading!

Congrats if you are getting married tomorrow Saturday. But if you still have weeks and months before your wedding, listen to this. 

1. By the way, do you know that Saturday is not the only day you can marry? You can get married briefly within service on a Sunday, and any of the weekdays is a good day! Even you can get married at night. Who says it must be in the morning and an all day affair? 

2. Do you also know that traditional engagement is a wedding? Court wedding is a wedding? And Church or Islamic wedding is a wedding? So why do 3 weddings combined within 3 days? 

You can do traditional (engagement) wedding and ask your pastor or imam to bless it and that becomes a valid Union in its own right. 

And you can also do a court wedding and after which you ask your religious leader to bless you and it is valid as well before God. 

So, you really don't have to do 3 weddings, 3 Aso-Ebis, and 3 Cakes with 3 different set of catering to cater for people. 

We really need to set and get our priorities right. If we are not careful, we will be throwing parties of proposal day and acceptance day! 

Gosh! I did not even mention Introduction party or whatever it can be termed. 

3. Moreover, rent a wedding gown, rent your wedding suit. Myself and my wife are still staring at ours after 7 years. Why? Because they are not something you just pull on just any other day. 

4. As of this month Nov 2015, Mark Zuckerberg's net worth is $45.2 billion dollars. But he was already a $19 billion dollars mogul in his 20s and at the time of his wedding when he only told 100 family and business associates that it was a surprise party. In fact, they got married at a community property that is used by common people. 

5. Spending or blowing money on wedding just because one can afford it does not really mean a jack. If one of the richest guys in the world had less than one-sixth of those that attended my own wedding at his, then we can always do things moderately in my own opinion without stretching ourselves. 

6. One of the best thing I did was walking away from a £350 Russell & Bromley shoe suggested to me at Oxford street for the same R&B shoe at Dalston for £120. Point is, nobody came to kiss my shoe on my wedding day and I even gave it away less than a year thereafter! 

7. Yes, you want to make yourself happy and and it is a day of thanksgiving, but do you know that heaven won't fall nor will the earth collapse if you only have less than 100 people at your wedding rather than the multitude you draw. 

It can still be super glamorous with 60 people in attendance rather than let it be an extravagant waste. When I look at the way our politicians at home are spending the government money to do their children's wedding or even their own 3rd or 4th wife wedding, I cry. 

Let your wedding be with your loved ones and immediate household of faith you belong to. Don't go overboard and don't stretch yourself. Marriage is to be enjoyed rather than endured. 

Finally, white wedding was first made popular by Queen Victoria at her wedding to Prince Albert! Before then, any colour including black was used by brides. Queen Victoria personally did a wedding of 'White' to rein on the extravagance of expensive colours that women of the day go at length to do. 

Actually, austerity of the day, and an attempt to appear simple and not extravagant made her do her wedding in white. But today, everybody is calling her white wedding a church wedding that must be done at all cost. Who says you must spend money you don't have to do what could have been done in a much simpler way. Save yourself. 

These are just my opinions and which those who share same can imbibe. Let us stop the culture of waste. By the way, I did all three forms of wedding and cut cakes as well. But just saying for those coming after us, that extravagance or poshness is not what will determine how great your marriage will be. 

By the way, I took a tube and a train to my court wedding fully dressed in my wedding suit. Lolz. I only gave the honour of a limo to my church wedding. But like I said, have fun and be creative with what you have. Don't stretch it. 

If I am to do it all over, I will use the hotel and caterer we approached at Wembley and who gave us the instruction that every guest will be responsible for their meals and drinks which was set at £25 per person. We ran away then thinking nobody will pay that amount to come and rejoice with us. But now I understand that if they indeed love us and wish us well, each attending guest will pay that amount for our sake. 

You want to know if your guests really love you, ask them to pay for their foods and drinks at your reception! It was £25 then 7 years ago. It will be more now. Can they do that? That's where the love is. 

God bless and have fun. Prepare well and be smart. Let's change what is not good for us.

Just Added: I just remember now that I have once been entertained with cold sandwich and wine at a wedding. I was so hungry that I tucked in at a close by KFC soon after. It was an oyinbo wedding of course! Lolz.

Written by Amos Ajewole via Facebook


Cover image via Weddaily.com