By Deirdre McArdle,Irishexaminer.com

Copyright irishexaminer

Afterwards, we signed the local registry as part of the ceremony so our marriage is registered in my family’s hometown. Then the groom’s family present gifts to the bride’s family — usually the bride’s family have already sent a list of the kind of gifts they want. The bride’s family accept the gifts. And then after all those traditions and customs, we have a party with food and drinks.

On the Friday we travelled back to Lagos, where I grew up, which is where we were having our church wedding on the Saturday. It was a big wedding with all our families and our friends.

We rented a hotel and event centre for the wedding called The Five Palm Oniru. It was a large venue. On the morning of the wedding Faith and I were getting ready on either side of the hotel. We were passing messages to each other via her sister who was running in between the two of us.

At one stage I was working on my vows, making some last-minute tweaks and Faith’s sister said, “oh, Faith has a gift for you”. And she gives me this watch that Faith had engraved at the back with our names and the date of our wedding, and I just started crying. I was so emotional. Three years later, I still wear the watch everyday.

And then my mom came to see me and talk to me before the ceremony, and that was so emotional as well. I’m my mom’s first child and the first one to get married, so it was a very big deal for both of us.

We had the ceremony outside, and as I was waiting at the altar I could see the car with Faith arriving, and then seeing her walking up the aisle with her dad, I was overcome with emotion and started crying again. You know the saying, “my life flashed before my eyes?”, well it felt like the opposite of that. Seeing her coming towards me and looking so beautiful, I saw my entire future stretched out before me with Faith by my side.

Faith’s dress was beautiful. It was from Yemi Shoyemi, a Nigerian bridal dress designer. She said she wanted a two-in-one dress, that could transform from a ball gown style for the ceremony to a nice evening dress for the reception. It had a high neck with long sleeves, which reflected her personal style. She said it made her feel like “an elegant princess”.

We had a wedding planner in Nigeria who helped us to plan the wedding. Most of what we did was make decisions. And both of our moms were very involved. My mom was so extra. But we were so grateful to them because they brought a lot of the culture and customs into our day. For example, my mom had arranged for traditional dancers from our village to perform a typical dance before we walked in. And that was great.

In Nigeria we have a celebratory entrance where the bride and groom come into the venue. There’s music and dancing and it’s vibrant and joyful. I remember everyone being so excited and super happy dancing around, it was wonderful.

Everyone was so happy and emotional all day. After the meal, our friends and family gave speeches, and then there were prayers and blessings too from everyone. Of course there were laughs too, not just tears.

For our first dance, we had this song that I played for Faith when we first started dating called May I Have This Dance by Francis and The Lights. It’s our absolute favourite couple’s song, and when we were dancing there were all these white sheets around us so it felt like we were dancing in the clouds.

We didn’t have a very late night. I’d say we were in bed by midnight. We were so tired from all the celebrations before the day itself.

When I look back on the day my lasting memories are the watch that Faith gave me, which symbolised our love. And also the vows we shared with each other, the promises we made to each other in terms of how we speak to each other and how we communicate, and of course the love that we share for each other. Those things do resonate with me.

Dagogo Hart’s children’s book Lantern Smoke is about finding home. It can be found in bookshops nationwide.