How much do Nigerians spend on weddings?

It is a well known fact that the poverty rate in Nigeria is about 35%. According to the World Bank, 70 million Nigerians live on less than a dollar a day. Whether these statistics are true is a topic for another day but one fact we can hardly contest, is that when it comes to spending money on weddings in Nigeria, the thoughts of having money hardly comes into place.

Weddings in Nigeria have come to be seen as a sacrosanct affair in which every Nigerian, especially the ladies look up to. From the day the girl becomes aware of her sexuality, that day she starts to conjure up fairy-tale images of how her ideal wedding will look like. No help from the media, who constantly feed them with the pomp and pageantry of Nigerian celebrity weddings. 

I was with a cousin recently, who is planning his wedding. He constantly complains of the incessant calls for money from his fiancé. “Every now and then she keeps demanding money to buy this material, that shoe, that gift”, he said. "I have tried to play the good husband for some time now, but I'm becoming fed up, she is insensitive and only thinks about herself. She is only concerned about how fine she would look that day and how her friends and family would come to see her, there is really nothing bad there, but she must also know that after the wedding, everybody would go home and it will be left with just us”.

This further led me to ask, how much does the average Nigerian wedding cost? I have gone through a lot of popular wedding magazines, spoken with event planners and couples altogether; I can therefore say, the average Nigerian wedding will cost a little over half a million Naira to organize. I was also taken aback by this amount, knowing fully well that the average monthly take home pay in Nigeria is about fifty thousand. Then how do Nigerians manage to put up such a glamorous ceremony despite their low income.

Weddings in Nigeria is not an individual affair so I came to understand. It is set up by one of the most sophisticated social dependency structure. Yes, the husband might be able to finance it by as much as 70% but most of the times marriages in Nigeria is financed by Nigeria's large extended family system. The moment the fiancé announces her wedding, that moment it ceases to be her wedding but our wedding.

At that moment she starts receiving a flurry of help from uncles, aunties, and well-wishers. The reason why they do this is because Nigerians attach a kind of spiritual connection to the union of two people hence the need to rally support for her, but don’t just go begging money for support after the wedding,  you will be shocked by their reactions. The bride is also able to make money by buying large pieces of materials (Aso ebi) and selling at a very high price to friends and family.

Exorbitant you might say but family members and friends hardly bulk knowing fully well that wedding is a trado-spiritual occasion and an opportunity to be part of it, regardless of the money is welcomed. The cloths often times serving as object of nostalgia when next they put it on.

So the next time you visit Nigeria and you see your not too buoyant cousin putting up a very lavish wedding, do not think he has gotten a mouthwatering job or won a state lottery, your money might have well paid for the wedding hall, so my friend why don’t you sit down, relax and enjoy the gaiety of a Nigerian wedding.

For more articles on business and lifestyle, please visit Coffeetimex.com

Have you done your wedding or planning one, what are your experiences? Do you want to break the bank or just want to keep it low. We would like to know.