At long last – we had our church wedding and wedding party and I enjoyed every. Single. Second!! We held the wedding party a year after our court wedding so our anniversary remains the same haha, and before I get into the post I have to especially thank our photographer Nelson Niteh and videographer Dellali Defor for honoring our payments from last year – for those that don’t know, we were forced to cancel our wedding a few weeks before the day. Going by the contracts we had agreed to, our payments were meant to have been forfeited but Nelson and Dellali had been carried along with all the painful drama we had experienced at the time and so kindly offered to provide their services when we were ready. This was such a relief and we are incredibly grateful for their care and concern – book them for your events guys!
So let’s get into it! We got married on Thursday 7th of September (yes a weekday, it was a compromise with Nelson and Dellali so they could still book weddings on the weekend) in our home church, new generation church! I say home because it truly has become such a safe place for us, we were received with a love that’s so genuine and generous. We’ve been members since shortly after we moved to Nottingham and I’m so grateful to have found it. Being a 2 minute drive from our home, we were able to get dressed at home and turn up to the all-in-one wedding venue for both the service and the reception, which made things really seamless!
Before I carry on – Let’s rewind back to the day before when we: myself, Samuel, Joyce, Perdita, Alex, Omowunmi, and Halima set up the entire hall alongside the two decorators! Our bishop was on hand too and provided extra chairs and tables at no added cost – God bless him!! This whole hall was put together by us and I’m so so grateful for my tribe honestly, coming round the day before to help with prep was so necessary- thank you guys!!
Back to the wedding day – while I and my bridesmaids were getting glammed up at our house, my brother Isaac, Michael (who was also our MC!) and Efosa our sure guy were sorting out the drinks and ice boxes at the hall – God bless you guys mennn!
Over at our house the girlies were glammed up and we had our bride reveal shoot in our garden 🙂
There was a time when opening my wedding planner would give me anxiety; I had been using it to plan whilst my former church had kicked us out of the marriage process – because my parents had insisted that I got married at the church and believed the church would change their mind – they didn’t. When we finally decided to have the wedding at our new church, it took a lot of courage to pick this book back up, due to the reminders of the pain, the tear-stained pages…but I’m so glad I did. Being able to actualise the plans without any external hindrances was such a blessing.
So let’s head back over to the church where Samuel and his groomsmen were waiting – we kept the tradition of the groom not seeing the bride on the wedding day until they meet at the altar – Samuel thought it was silly but he indulged me nonetheless – that’s true love haha
It was a pity that my parents decided to be absent on our wedding day; stating that they thought it was unnecessary since we had already done the court wedding the year before. Nonetheless, they prayed with me on the morning of the ceremony which was their idea of a compromise. I decided to focus on all the love being poured out by the rest of my huge family and fantastic friends instead that day, and I’m so glad I did!
Vendor list – Instagram pages – each of them did amazingly well: