Seun and Toye’s Traditional Nigerian Wedding in Lagos | #TheLoveStory19
Brianna Kozlarek / Wednesday June 12, 2019
There’s a reason why cultural weddings are a hit here at Perfête. As a Nigerian myself, I swoon from ear to ear when we receive a perfectly captured traditional Nigerian wedding. Seun and Toye tied the knot traditionally in Lagos, Nigeria, with a vibrant and colorful Yoruba ceremony while surrounded by those nearest and dearest to their hearts. Their wedding story is particularly heartwarming as this couple had to navigate a really tough time of loss over the planning process. Through thick and thin, the families came together to celebrate this special love and the new bond that has emerged from it. We’re so in love!
One of the first things that caught my eye at #TheLoveStory19 was the wedding fashion. Yes, you guys know I have a superficial side to me (and proud of it!). The couple looked glorious in their complimenting Deola Sagoe Aso-Oke wedding outfits. The bride went for a two-piece blouse and wrapper outfit that had a chic victorian finish to it with the cutest bell sleeves. Talk about a timeless look!
The Fashion
You know that myth about having your bridesmaids look horrible on the wedding day, yup neither do we! Seun had her girls laced to perfection in the prettiest aso-ebi style dresses by Morayo AsoAsiko. The ladies were absolute wedding slayers in their various looks.
For our special day, I had seen a beautiful picture of constellations with different iterations of purple and teal in it, instantly I felt a pull toward that color scheme, but waited for confirmation. This came a few weeks later when I came across this verse in the bible: Beautiful priestly clothes were made of blue, purple, and red wool for Aaron to wear when he performed his duties in the holy place. This was done exactly as the LORD had commanded Moses.- Exodus 39:1 The significance of this was clear- those were the colors! I shared them with my husband and our moms who all loved it and we went from there. The darker shades were used for the general aso-ebi (which I designed with an Aso Oke specialist in Nigeria @asooketidupe on Instragram) and then I wore the lighter shades for my first outfit.
We really tried to stay out of the planning of the wedding in Nigeria and I’m glad we did because we had a tragedy in between which meant a date change. Originally our traditional wedding was scheduled for January 24th, but then my husbands mum passed away over Christmas and a joint decision was made to shift it to April 22nd. Our family and planners were amazing with shifting everything and rescheduling all of our vendors to accommodate the new date. In our state of grief, the last thing on our minds were details. Luckily Funke Bucknor is the best event planner and is also extremely creative. All we wanted were the right colors, rustic decor, flowing food and drinks, and a sick after-party. I would later learn that the Zapphire team had themed the after-party ‘Afrocentric’ which worked beautifully. It was quite nice to be as surprised as the guests about all of the details!
Wedding Ceremony
I’m a bit biased toward traditional Nigerian wedding details because I recognize a lot of the rituals involved with them. For those not familiar with traditional Yoruba weddings, it is filled with rites of respect and appreciation for the couple’s families. You can read our post about the process here.
