In a bid not to appear hateful or jealous, I really want to appeal to would-be couples to please cut cost on wedding expenses and focus on building your home together: making it comfortable and worth living for you both. Buy a car. Get your apartment tastefully furnished. Buy foodstuffs in your kitchen. Think beyond the wedding day. When all guests are gone, where would you be heading to? A hut? A cave? A mansion? A home? A shed?

For me, it’s extremely pathetic when I see couples have lavish wedding, yet move into a tiny one bedroom apartment with just a mattress and a wrapper as curtains. For some, the days after the wedding starts a life of misery and penury. It’s sad.

Forget about the talk of wedding being a “once in a lifetime” affair and you want to break the bank, run into debts and go all the way. Do you know your Marriage is forever affair and you’ll live with the financial choices you make.

No! I would understand if you’re not financially capable to afford a comfortable place. I’d understand that it’s not everyone who moves into their own houses or have it all furnished. I am talking about those who ignorantly or in the quest to impress friends, guests and society, spend so much, unnecessarily costs to make their day a funfare, yet could have saved some costs into furnishing and building their homes. It’s sad joooh. Or doing some other stuff.

What’s more sad is many go into debts, and living the next few months after the fairy-tale wedding paying these debts.

A colleague of mine told me of how his wedding was on all wedding blogs and magazines in town, yet he spent the next one year paying debts and balancing vendors. He said if he would go back to rewind that part of his life, he’d go back to cut unnecessary costs and focus more on his home with his wife. He was telling me this to learn from his story.

Another friend had a society wedding, but had to move into tiny self contained apartment which she told me was so unbearable for her and her hubby. She told me she wished she and her hubby had cut down a lot of their wedding expenses. She was also telling me this to learn from her story. When I paid her a visit, I felt very sorry for her. I couldn’t reconcile the lavish wedding pictures almost on all blogs and wedding websites with the present state they were in.

Remember, the wedding is just a day’s event. Many would forget what you wore and what meat they didn’t eat or what souvenirs they didn’t get. However, for your own home, where you would go back to sleep after the whole paparazzi…how is it? Are you going back to a one bedroom unfurnished flat? Are you going back to using kerosene stoves because you didn’t cut down wedding costs to put your kitchen appliances in place? Are you going back to drinking garri and eating groundnuts because you didn’t think foodstuffs in your kitchen would be necessary?

Think. Think. And think again.

Disclaimer: I didn’t say that having a lavish wedding isn’t good. No! I am appealing that if you must have or fancy a lavish wedding, be sure that your home is properly furnished and comfortable. Please.

• ~ Omoby, 2017