Nigerian weddings are the new turn up. Every Saturday someone in Nigeria is getting married and trust me when I say nobody does it better than Lagosians. The Nigerian wedding traditions are beautiful and as time goes, they are also modified. The most exciting thing about the wedding is the colour combination for the Nigerian wedding and the Nigerian wedding outfits. Looking through the wedding hashtag on Instagram is like scrolling through an endless high-end fashion magazine. Beyond the vibe and catching a bug through Nigerian wedding songs, the guests also make a wedding. Here are the types of guests you’d see at a Nigerian Wedding.
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FFO (For Food Only)
The FFO is the most shameless wedding guest but you can’t shame the shameless. They do wish the couple a happy married life, however, they can do so after the wedding, before the wedding, in a text, with a gift, in an email and more, but they choose to do it at the wedding. If you observe, these guests don’t come for the religious service, they come only for the reception. This is because their biggest motivation is the food. They only came for the food. They came to eat Chinese rice, party jollof rice, amala, gbegiri and ewedu especially. They came to eat and drink and that is exactly what they are going to do.
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Professional Dancer
These guests are somewhat the life of the party. They get the other guests moving on the dancefloor. They didn’t come to the wedding they came for the reception and the after party. These guests struggle to stay in place when the bride and groom open the dance floor with their ceremonial dances with each other and their parents, so they can rip the dance floor into pieces. They take their groove so seriously you would think they are professionals. Throwing all caution to the wind, they let out their sharpest shaku on the dancefloor.
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Husband Seekers
Where better to find a life partner than at the union of soon to be life partners. There will be many guests at a wedding, married, courting and most importantly single. Weddings have an atmosphere that is different from every other gathering. At a wedding, love diffuses through the air and everyone catches a bug. It is at a wedding you get to meet and greet different potential husbands and a preview of what he would look like on your wedding day. At weddings, there is a whole sea of fish to choose from, so they come in numbers to find their match.
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Phone pressers
Nobody even knows why these guys attend Nigerian weddings. The annoying part is, they do it at every event, not just weddings. These guests always come looking nice, they are on time, they are very happy to be at the wedding. With the level of enthusiasm they exhibit, you would think they are coming to have a good time. They came to chat, it other words, they came to press their phones. For some reason, their phones suddenly become far more engaging than the wedding. The fact that sparks curiosity in the cat is that they are telling someone else how great the wedding is with every little funny detail.
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Instagram/Snapchat updaters
These guests are not attending your wedding mainly because they love you, they are attending in a bid to stun for the gram and snapchat. In my opinion, if you are getting married don’t bother hiring a videographer, these guys will capture every angle and moment of your wedding free of charge. Their phones are constantly in the air trying to capture selfie upon selfie, video upon video and boomerang upon boomerang. Every Saturday the viewers at home have a better view of weddings if you want you can attend up to four Nigerian weddings from the comfort of your own home. It is so funny that a viewer at home would know more of what happened at a wedding the live guests.
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Women finders
He who findeth a wife, findeth a good thing. The same way a lot of women come to weddings looking for husbands of new fish, so do men. You probably know their type already. They come dressed in crisp agbada, patent or suede loafers and shades. They call themselves Yoruba demons. In reality not, all of them are Yoruba, however, the term ‘Yoruba demon’ is a blanket name used for a breath-snatching Nigerian men.
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Mo gbo mo branch (I heard, I branched)
These guests are part of the contingency plan. They crash weddings because they are uninvited. In Nigeria, they are called “mo gbo, mo branch” which translates to “I heard, I branched”. They do not know the couple, neither does the couple know them, they simply decided to check out the event they heard was going to be bubbling. On second thought, I think this category of guests are more shameless than the FFOs because they attend weddings with pride and even hashtag it on social media.
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Slay Queens & Kings
These guys take the wedding to social media. It is not news that Nigerian weddings trend on social media. They trend because of the guests. It is nice to have an awesome theme, an amazing pre-wedding shoot and beautiful aso ebi colour combination for your Nigerian wedding, it is also another thing to have you guests slay lives in the colour code. The major reason people search Nigerian wedding hashtags is to see the Nigerian wedding outfits. These days guest battle for best dressed at someone else’s wedding. The reception automatically becomes a red carpet for different fashion statements to be made. The slay queens and slay kings never come to play.
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Enemies
Everybody has enemies and they will keep you closer. Nobody wants evil wishers at their wedding, however, people do not always know who their enemies are. In a country like Nigeria, it won’t be surprising if someone intentionally invites their enemy to their celebration, so they can see how great you’re doing, it is common. Also, your enemies will always find a way to be at your celebration so they can plot your downfall or spread bad energy on that day. At weddings, the enemies surround themselves with bitter friends and do nothing but hiss and find things to condemn in your wedding.
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Competitors
At a Nigerian wedding, you will always find competitors. What they are competing for is uncertain but there is always a silent competition. Some of them become evident as the day concludes, whereas some go unnoticed to everyone else but the competitors themselves. Some couples compete with other newlyweds in the case of whose wedding was better? Some guests compete for who wore a better outfit, who wore more expensive jewellery, who tied a nicer gele/hair tie, who used more quality hair extension and as childish as who bought aso ebi and who didn’t. Some people think the men don’t compete, but it would shock you they that they will not want anyone to beat them in the money spraying challenge. Women do this too. if your competitor sprays a lower denomination, you spray a higher one. If he or she sprays dollars, you spray pounds and the cycle continues.
