The Royal Wedding Naija Style

All this Royal banter has got me imagining what the Royal Wedding would be like if it was Nigerian Royalty. We all know that Yorubas have the most effeeezzzy, so lets go with a Yoruba Royal wedding.

Weeks before the event (Yes, not months), the mother of the bride would have mobilised all her friends (The “mothers of the day”) to sell the Aso-Ebi for the event, to all other friends that live in their vicinity. Being a “Royal wedding” the lace will be nothing less than N400k for the engagement (traditional wedding) and the white wedding. Nothing too played out it would have to be a randommmmm colour, so everybody will know that “puff puff yato si doughnut”, and of course “Tesco value yato si krispy Kreme” ... This royal wedding will be the krispy kreme of all royal weddings. There will of course have to be a shortage of this aso ebi, there will be more demand, more hype if it is rare, all the friends of the bride’s parents are at loggerheads with each other because one got 5 yards, whilst the other only got 3 yards, just the kind of scandal needed to get people talking about the upcoming nuptuals.

It will suddenly dawn on the planning committee (the bride, her mother, and one over sabi aunt), that they have not printed invitations or secured a venue for the event. At this point the Olori (the Queen) will roll on the floor in front of the Oba (her husband, the King), and he will then put a call into Elizabeth R, and if Eko Hotel has been booked he’ll also have to put in a call to the leader of the southwest political party to ensure the swift rescheduling of whatever program was to hold (after all he opens up the way to the future – who else could solve the problem).

Now that the Aso–Ebi has been ‘ha’d’, the venue secured and Lagos’ A-List event planner booked, the buzz and word will begin to circulate , everyone in Lagos will be coveting that much sought after invitation, do not fret because if you don’t have one, ‘ko si problem’ you will still enter. The invitations will be printed, in a big rush, now its only 3 days to the event (the suspense of who will get official invites will now have reached a peak), the sentences will not be printed in straight lines, and there will likely be a few mistakes, but someone will cross out the embossed gold lettering with a blue ball point bic biro and correct it to “Eko Expo Centre”. Now that is done, the sorting out of memorabilia for the special day will commence. All manner and kind of plastic and metal buckets, mugs, note books, sponges, dustbins, credit, mobile phones even (those cheap visafone ones), plastic fans, electric fans, all sorts, just name it, they will be personalised with Sumbo weds Bosun, or Sumbo hooks Bosun.

The D-day has arrived (for simplicity sake let’s just assume this is just the one day, because we all know the chaos of the engagement will be replicated at the white wedding). The streets will not be lined with members of the public, because quite frankly nobody really cares, the traffic will be horrendous, but since it is a bigggzzz gel and bigggzzzz boy wedding, all the guests will have mo po to navigate their way through the traffic. The focus will completely be taken off the bride and the groom, after all “They are just at the altar, it is the parents that are doing the wedding”.... Every song the bride chooses to dance into will be criticised by the aforementioned friends of the bride’s mother, “ song yen o da rara” “Song wo? Ah, ko dun”, in the end the bride ends up dancing in to a song she completely detests, but it was the only one that the random aunts would agree to. She’s eventually in, has been unveiled and presented to her groom. The “alaga” would do her very best to frustrate the couple, embarrass them and of course to ensure she gets sprayed the most money of the day. The bride picks one of the gifts from the grooms family (A “Holy Book” of course, Lord alone knows why they bring other gifts since this is the only option), all the traditional stuff is done with, and the ‘enjoyment’ begins. Enjoyment is relative of course.

Did I mention that none of the guest would have arrived yet, 3 hours into the event they finally arrive, in their mile high gele’s, matching shoes and bags, and depending on their closeness to the couple they will have their own branded gifts to distribute. The waiters will go into a frenzy, they didn’t expect this many people all at once (even though this happens at EVERY event), the service will be shoddy, champagne will be rationed, food will be cold, and eventually it gets too much, so the waiters all hide behind the speakers drinking Jack Daniels neat. Hours pass, nothing has actually happened, it’s a circus, but somehow people feel so special to be on the guest list that they are blinded to this fact. The families of the couple couldn’t have hoped for a bigger success, they all go home, and sleep for a week. That was the most strenuous day of their lives, and the only possible way to recover is to lie on their backsides and eat endlessly for a prolonged period of time, while taking phone calls from friends at family who affirm their delusions of success at throwing a grand party.

Xoxo.