Nigerians Are Detached From Their Own Reality 

Last week, an about-to-be-wed woman shared a vlog from what should have been an untouchable day, her wedding morning. In the footage, her face is luminous, glowing with that specific radiance that belongs only to brides, anticipation mixed with certainty, nerves dissolved in joy. But the internet had other plans. She had committed a grave sin, it turned out, by taking a tricycle to her makeup appointment.  Judgment came down like a hammer, with threads advising women to shy away from getting married without the expensive home service glam that is common for brides. The comments multiplied, each one sharpening its blade upon the last. Here was a woman who had probably saved towards a celebration, paid for her own makeup, and yet, because she had chosen practicality over performance, she was deemed unfit for love itself. When, exactly, did we lose our grip on reality?

The irony cuts deep. In Nigeria, only 10% of the population earn above ₦100,000 every month.  Let that number settle. The minimum wage hovers at ₦70,000, a sum that evaporates before it can cover rent, food, transport, and other bills for the average Nigerian. Yet somewhere between our lived reality and our phone screens, we’ve constructed a glittering empire where anything short of extravagance is treated as sin. A whole theatre of prosperity now sits on a foundation of poverty, propped up by the illusion that the stage is real. The cruelest part is how the country’s most visible narratives punish the people actually living in Nigeria, not the version that exists only on curated feeds.

Consider the weddings that set our timelines ablaze this year. There was #Chivido, Davido and Chioma’s union, which included a million-dollar ring. The gilded elite of Nigerian society filled every corner, their presence alone worth more than most people’s annual income. Priscilla and Juma Jux were the talk of the internet for months, with their wedding held at multiple locations. Temi Otedola’s wedding celebration spanned Monaco, Dubai, and Iceland. All weddings with intense productions and dreams most people will only ever witness through a screen.

And there’s no crime in celebrating and marvelling at these weddings. But it appears something shifted in the watching. Slowly, insidiously, we began mistaking the exception for the standard. We consumed the images—the cascading florals, the designer labels, the choreographed luxury—and somewhere in that consumption, we misplaced our memory. We forgot that for most Nigerians, a wedding means jollof rice bubbling in blackened pots behind the house, a playlist on someone’s phone instead of a live band. It means taking a tricycle to the make-up shop. 

What once set Nigerian weddings apart, what made them distinctly ours, was the weight we placed on the ceremony itself. The traditional rites, the joining of families, the rituals passed down through generations that tied two people together. Marriage was communal, steeped in meaning that couldn’t be purchased. But somewhere between then and now, something shifted. In 2025, weddings are still called sacred, but they’ve been reengineered for shock value. The spectacle has swallowed the substance. 

In the Uncultured podcast episode When Will You Marry?, Culture Custodian traces the origins of this obsession, how marriage became less about covenant and more about content, less about commitment and more about clout. It asks: when did the visuals begin to matter more than the vows? And how did we arrive at a place where taking a keke to your wedding is considered disqualifying? The truth is that a culture once rooted in community has become a willing thief of Western fantasies, forcing imported aesthetics onto a landscape where they were never meant to grow. Instagram-perfect destination weddings on Santorini cliffs. Choreographed bridesmaid proposals with matching robes and champagne flutes. Elaborate bridal showers where cupcakes are stacked into towers that cost more than some people’s rent.

The average Nigerian worker earning ₦100,000 monthly would need to surrender their entire salary for three months just to afford a single designer wedding outfit. Now tell that person to compete with celebrities who incinerated millions on ceremonies that looked like film sets. It’s become a game where the price of entry is more than what most people will earn in a year, and we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that playing is mandatory, that if you can’t pay, you shouldn’t even show up to your own life.

We are in danger of erasing ourselves from our own story. The woman who braids hair in her living room, tucking away ₦5,000 at a time for a wedding six months away. The couple who sends WhatsApp messages to relatives, pooling contributions to afford a modest hall in Ikeja. The groom who borrows his friend’s Camry for the day, promising to return it with a full tank and a plate of small chops. These are not footnotes but real people living real lives, and their joy doesn’t diminish simply because it didn’t cost a fortune. 

Nigerians need to wake up from this unoriginal dream. These standards we’ve swallowed whole:  destination weddings, the designer everything, the production value that rivals award shows. They are beautiful in their own context, but become an issue when we choose to punish each other for failing to maintain a certain class illusion.

It’s time to release our grip on these borrowed metrics of worth. Before we rush to judge the next bride whose wedding doesn’t look like it was art-directed by a luxury brand, let’s remember something simple: two people looked at each other and said yes. That has never required approval from strangers on the internet. And it certainly has never needed to cost more than most Nigerians earn in a year. Love, in its truest form, is still free.