Planning a West African Wedding in America

My wife and I wanted a unique, memorable wedding.  Comparing her background of Nigeria on her father’s side to my run-of-the-mill lutefisk-origins, it was an easy choice. How could we pass up on the chance to throw a Nigerian-themed wedding? How hard could it be, I thought? The DJ throws on some world music, we rent some cool outfits, maybe sprinkle in a few Lion King-type statues, right?

Needless to say, the experience was a huge eye-opening and educational experience for us both. We came out of it with some spectacular memories and a newfound understanding of a beautiful culture. Because of all the hard work we poured into getting the event right, we decided to create this website to help any other engaged couples plan their own amazing African wedding.

West African Weddings

My first lesson was in geography and culture. I already knew that Africa has many, many countries. But what may not be obvious is that each African country contains many regions with their own distinct culture and language. Even each tribe within a region can have different wedding customs. My wife’s family tribe are the Kalabari people in the Southeast of Nigeria, near Port Harcourt. They are a water-dwelling people so instead of giraffes and lions, tribal symbols would be canoes and fish. All that said, there are many commonalities that are shared across the entire region, even to neighboring countries like Benin and Togo.

A major exception in Nigeria is between the Christian/Animist South and the Muslim North. Muslim rituals (such as weddings) are very different from non-Muslim ones. This article will refer only to traditions collected from researching non-Muslim weddings in the Niger Delta area. But we would love to learn more about Muslim (or any other) African wedding traditions in the comments below.

Nigerian Wedding Ceremonies

It is traditional in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria to have two wedding celebrations:

1. Traditional wedding with traditional clothes and ceremony
2. A religious “western” wedding in a church, with typical western (European) ceremony and clothes. 

Since my wife is a blend of two cultures, we decided to combine some traditions from her family’s region with some western wedding traditions. We are not very religious and did not want a western wedding so we stuck with a short version of #1. This article will only concern itself with the traditional form of African wedding. The result was a grand affair of dancing to traditional drumming as each wedding party traveled down the aisle, me asking for her hand from her father while at his feet, and shortening the festivities from several days and weeks, to an afternoon and evening.  We think the result was pretty awesome. We received so many compliments, we thought later that we should have charged for entry. ☺ We also altered the traditional wedding to make it shorter and a little more “American”. Sorry – we like to think the end result was pretty awesome tho!

Ceremonial traditions
There are many different individual ceremonial traditions.  We found some traditions, some that take hours, days, or even weeks.  For the traditions that we chose, we adjusted them to fit our timeframe.  

• The father’s permission – it’s traditional for the groom to ask the father for permission to marry his daughter.  Though traditionally this can take several weeks, we decided to have me and my groomsman lay down at my future father-in-law’s feet.  I grasped his foot while begging for his daughter’s hand. Fortunately for me, he did not leave us waiting down there for long. 

• The essential elements to a successful marriage – A family member should share three elements, along with advice (see #3) on why they are important to a long-lasting relationship. The bride’s Aunt gave us advice while handing us, oil – to light the fire, salt – to preserve the love and the lives we are joining together, and honey – not just the sweet, good times, but getting honey takes work, just like a marriage.
• Auntie’s advice – Someone in the bride’s family shares her/his wisdom to the groom…along with a few warnings of what will happen if he does not treat the bride right.
• Finding the groom – In this fun ceremony, the bride takes a cup of palm wine (typically with a cover) and search the area trying to find her groom.  Since we didn’t have hours to do this, nor have a large space, we changed it to have all of the groomsmen line up in a row at the front of the room. As the bride stood in front of each man, they tried to “woo” her and try to convince her to choose them instead.  She eventually got to the end where I was standing, and she found her “true groom.” 
• Identifying the bride – We didn’t do this one, but I’m sure there could be fun ways to adapt this for any wedding. Essentially, a woman is brought out covered by a vain. The groom must guess if it’s his bride or not.  

Palm Wine
Palm wine is a delicious, fizzy, low alcohol content drink made from palm sap. It’s used (along with kola nuts, in areas outside of River State) as more than just a food but a symbolic cultural icon. Unfortunately it does not travel well, and most “Palm wine” you can order is actually just flavored soda. There are African stores in Chicago that carry the real deal. We visited half a dozen in Seattle but found none. Looking forward to trying the real deal when we visit Nigeria!

Money Spray
This is a popular custom by which, while the bride is dancing, audience members get up and press dollar bills to her forehead, then drop them upon the ground. The bridesmaids and friends help pick up the cash. It’s a fun way for guests to show off their generosity while helping pay for the party. The bride decided to skip this traditional part of the party, much to the chagrin of the groom and his wallet.

Wedding Coordinator
You are hiring a Wedding Coordinator, right? If not, stop and go save up more money before doing this. Trust us – if you don’t have a good Wedding Coordinator – you’re not ready and your event will be super-stressful. Here in Seattle, we loved Kiara Bright-Hancock of K Hancock Events – she calmly and seamlessly coordinated a large, complex, and constantly-changing event.

Dancing
This could be a topic of whole other post! In Seattle there is a fantastic West African dance class given by Etienne Capo of Gansango. We took classes with Etienne, including some with our bridesmaids and groomsmen. During the ceremony, the groomsmen and I danced in first, then the bridesmaids and bride danced in separately. After the ceremony, my new bride and I danced out together followed by the groomsmen and bridesmaids.

Afterwards during dinner, two professional dancers from Gansango Dance Company showed off how real talented African dancing can look.

Drumming
We were fortunate to have a great half-dozen experienced African drummers at the event for the ceremony and dancing after. Yaw (Eugene) Amponsah provided the can’t-sit-still beat and teaches drumming classes. 

Nigerian Food
Finding West African food in Seattle is tough. Now we have Bantaba in Lynnwood, but for our wedding we hired a Nigerian friend, Mujidat (Muji) Calfos (Quality Taste Catering 206-307-7693) to prepare and serve the wonderful food for our 150+ guests. FYI that Nigerian food is typically cooked on the bone and so might be a bit messy or stick in your throat. Cooking on the bone makes it taste AMAZING! Muji’s food blew our guests’ minds! It was a culinary experience in itself and everyone kept raving about it. Hire Muji!

Invitations
We worked with Rowell Llanillo (Sparkll) a very talented artist who created amazing African-themed invites and large poster for the entrance.

Don’t forget the Dowry!
Back in Africa, the dowry is a serious affair, requiring hours or days of negotiation between the families and involving major cash and/or animals. Here in Seattle, we were a little more relaxed about the bride’s wealth(did I mention she‘s an IT Project Manager?) so my plan to pay her father in cows was overruled and we symbolized it with a large basket of fruit.

Of course I met my future father-in-law months beforehand and formally asked for his daughter’s hand. He laughed and told me that really, when we had moved in together we were considered “married.” I told him I was overjoyed to hear that, as he just saved me the cost of the wedding, but for some reason he wouldn’t let me leave before I agreed to put on a wedding anyway for his daughter. 

Nigerian Wedding Clothes 

Nigerians love dressing up for special occasions! Especially in matching outfits with bright colors. Seriously, these people live to style. There are hundreds of ethnic groups, each with different fashion traditions and styles. We focused on the Ijaw and Igbo clothes.

Outfit colors
At our wedding, the bride and groom were in gold, but any color can be chosen. The bridesmaids will be in a different color, the groomsmen will also be in a different color, and family members will try to pick a family color to wear.

Family members
Family members (even if not African!) should join in the fun and dress up in “family colors.” Think of it like Scottish family tartan, but on the other side of the world.

Women’s Clothes
Women typically wear 

1. Wrapper or “Up and down” – long cloth wrapped around waist to form dress
2. Blouse – The blouse 🙂
3. Gele – head wrapper

Men’s Clothes
Kalabari Men have a few options: 

1. Woko – Knee-length jacket over matching pants.
2. Dunni – These look great and are commonly worn in the Kalabari tribe. 

Traditionally, the man wears a bowler hat and fancy cane with his Woko or Dunni. We chose to dispense with this legacy of British colonialism so my groomsmen and I wore matching hats called Aso Oke or Filas.

The officiant
The officiant (religious official or gov’t official or just someone who has bought the $20 license to be able to marry friends) should be dressed  in a similar style but unique colors.

Resources

Here are some links that helped us

Planning Your Own African Wedding

We hope these tips are helpful to you in planning your own African-style wedding, no matter which continent you do it on! Leave a comment with any tips for other wedding planners on how to bring some of the incredible African culture back to their own celebration, no matter where.

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