And so to the main day. First order of business: breakfast, for which there were at least forty people spread out all over the cafe at the hotel – cousins, nephews, nieces and a fair few friends of the family all making up the lot. Nigerian weddings are a village affair after all. I shudder to think of what the other guests, squeezed out to a tiny side room, must have felt about the loud mass of Nigerians, seemingly appearing out of no where in this corner of middle-adjacent America.
The call went out for a 12noon gathering downstairs to get ferried to the main venue, no suprises that quite a few of the crowd were still getting their face beat at 1pm. In the end we left at 2pm, arrived for 3pm, with the even only kicking off at 3.30pm. To be fair, once underway, the official bits went at a steady clip, vows, rings and all getting done within the hour.
The reception on the other hand was an absolute drag. For that we had the combination of the late start, and a programme filled to the gills with the trappings of the wedding industrial complex to thank. Families dancing in separately, the bridal party dancing in two by two, and pointless games to name a few.
It was well past 10 pm when I wrapped it up and left, the dance floor still reverberating to various Nigerian beats. The moral of the story if there is one is this: the one thing to not do at a Nigerian party is arrive early.
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