Nigeria Wedding Planning, Wedding Traditions in Nigeria

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Nigerian Wedding Traditions

In Nigeria, there are four ceremonies which include:

The Introduction
The Traditional Marriage (Engagement)
The Actual Wedding Ceremony (Church, mosque, registry) depending on your faith
the Wedding Reception

The Introduction, is a ceremony to introduce the two families to each other, the Grooms family would normally go to the brides with women already married to their family (i.e. the grooms brothers wives, his uncles wives, and other older women in the grooms family. They will visit the brides family with a letter asking for their daughters hand in Marriage, this ceremony will include traditional dances and they will have to pay some money to the brides family for them to accept the letter from them. This is usually done a few days before the wedding. There is usually some home cooking made for the guest to eat.

The next ceremony is the engagement, where the again the grooms family would go to the brides family to find out their response to the initial letter sent during the introduction ceremony, during this ceremony the families are introduced to each other formally so the invited guest are familiar with everybody in either family. The two family would normally have a speaker each to relay messages across to the other, this is done in the ceremony (the brides family would sit on one side and the grooms on the other. A reply to the letter asking for their daughters hand in Marriage is read out by the brides sister or younger relative or even the speaker on the brides side. Along with other things, the grooms family will come to this ceremony with traditional food stuff such as; yam, palm oil, sugar, ram, drinks and many more.. other things the grooms family will provide is a suitcase packed with traditional clothing include shoe, bags, jewelry and in some cases they will have to give a DOWRY...This is known as the bride price. After this ceremony the bride goes back to her fathers house to prepare for the wedding day...This ceremony can be done with the introduction.

On the wedding day, things are done much the normal way with every nation. The bride goes to the church with her father etc.....After, the wedding the reception and then the night party. After the night party the bride is taken back to her fathers house and prayed for by her parents. he then changes to her going away outfit and awaits her Husband who will come with his family to claim his bride. They then leave together and start their new life together. The bride and groom then goes back to the grooms family house where a night party is organized and they will dance and dance till morning in some cases with live band playing music to their ears.

Article by: Moji Raheem

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