Of Incompletion and Love Journeys: It’s not perfect and probably will never be.

A few days ago, I was in a self-service apartment in Lagos that was a wrecking ball of mistakes and incompetencies. It was the night before my court wedding to the heartthrob - Tumi. I felt like she’d not be getting anything close to a great wedding we had envisioned. Even the one thing that should have been great for us had literally been ripped out from our grasp and we have to settle for something subpar and imperfect.

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I’m there screaming at the agent (whom I am leaving anonymous for the sake of the referral I got), and my nuclear family except my immediate younger sister are all set to appear in court with us. We go out to look for food at some point and navigating Lagos hits me differently at each realization that I can’t get everything I want to work the way they should. I am consoled by the fact that I am marrying my friend and will always be able to smear that fact all over whatever I choose to write or say.

There are also my friends, the Makeup artiste, Hassan Adebukola and the Photographer Emmanuel who helped make my wedding possible in so many ways. Due to the inconvenience of the arrangements we had, they had to give their time and energy. The night before we would get wedded at Ikoyi Registry, we all were together reminiscing, grumbling about the electricity outages, chit chatting, and I felt like I had family with me at an important point of my life.

The pictures of that day will do much more justice to this story.

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Before we got to this point, it had been a lot of growing and learning ourselves. We attended church where we met Pastor Johan and his wife, Christelle. They had begun to offer us the Church’s counselling support and this mean digging into a lot of our fights, likes, dislikes, biases, and sentiments, and it was often hurtful to talk about some of the things we were struggling to resolve. We also had some time with another counsellor, Mummy Modupe Ehirim and that was another set of grueling self-query. For me, it felt like I was scrutinizing all the reasons I have become who I am in an effort to affirm my decision to marry Tumi. We also had the steadying hands of Jane Oma and my parents to keep us afloat. It felt like we were drowning sometimes but we also have people rooting for us.

We had fixed our Wedding for May 19 but then changed the date for convenience to 21. As we drew closer to this day, we began to face the storms that would typically shake convictions and they almost broke us sometimes. In those extremely difficult moments, I saw us both holding on for dear life, reaching out, grasping for a foothold, and trudging ahead. We had a grueling month between Jan and Feb where Magadi (dowry) negotiations between the families became heated and almost set fire to the whole engagement.

Insert a Nigerian family in the context of South Africa and this cross-cultural entity we have created. It's bound to be volatile, filled with suspicion, and a lot of acrimonies.

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We fought. It was nothing short of a miracle that we stayed and held on faith that we are meant to be together. We also came to understand that weddings are hardly ever going to be the exact image of what any party wants them to be. The parents will make compromises, the children will, and there will be losses and gains for all sides. Some of our losses hurt so much and we are still healing from them. It took us a while to accept that our wedding will be nothing conventional and couldn’t play out according to the scripts we had given ourselves and I believe this is what frustrated us both the most.

Finally, the Magadi negotiations went through. We were all relieved and I even went to Limpopo with an older friend, Mr Asuni (A Nigerian too). We met Tumi’s family as customs would require and this calmed some of the storms.

A few weeks into March, we realized that getting married legally in South Africa was quite a hassle for Nigerians. This led us down a rabbit hole of information search. We realized that it would likely be too late to complete the process before our Wedding day. Then we started to discuss the option of coming to wed in Nigeria as an alternative. Our families were informed of the challenges and we began to plan. Behind the scene, it was getting more difficult for us to put together all the resources for a grand wedding in May especially now that we had to be in Nigeria. Again, we started to debate the possible outcomes, whether we would have a church wedding, the clothes to wear, how many guests we could invite, and so on.

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By the time we arrived Nigeria, it had become clear that there would be a lot of disgruntled feelings from some family members about the arrangements of the wedding. There was no way we would have our own wedding without disrespecting the customs expected of a South African wedding. Eventually, we concluded to focus on getting legally married and celebrating much later in August this year.

I have not even spared any moment to talk about the constant guilt of not paying attention to my PhD thesis as much as I should. Even when I have a free moment to work, I am too low on energy that I cannot follow through. Being in Nigeria also came with its new challenges including the unpredictable electricity, the heat, mosquitoes, and the usual family drama. Meeting and receiving the blessings of the family also gave us something of greater relief.

When I started to write this piece, I felt like talking about all the things that felt so less than perfect. I was feeling like we have too many uncompleted projects. Even the apartment I had started to build in 2020 stood in our pictures like another reminder of uncompleted projects.

I want(ed) so many things and I truly like having picture-perfect moments. Yet, if anything, 2022 has been a mashup of incomplete collages. I know that it’s still somewhat early in the year to give a conclusion so I will rather talk about how beautiful it feels to be finally across a hurdle.

Now, we are married legally. On April 5, 2022, we met the Wedding Registrar at Ikoyi with family and friends. We said yes and exchanged rings. It was and is such a significant feeling of relief and joy that I can now call Tumi my wife, friend, and lover for now and always.

It’s been a journey and we are happy to share it with our friends. We created a marriage site and on it, you can send us gifts through Amazon or as cash. Thanks to the support of my parents, Engr. & Dr. Oriyomi and Adenike Oladeji, The Lepota family, Ms Dikeledi Lepota, the Oladeji Family, Afolayan family and all our friends who have been with us on this journey.

If you can, we invite you to celebrate with us in a traditional Pedi-Yoruba wedding come August. Get your tickets ready, because it will be happening in South Africa. There will be food and plenty of drinks.

For those who looked forward to our May Wedding, we will be at home on the 21st and will hope to specially celebrate with a few close friends who have been active support systems for us through it all. There might be a Livestream.