On the 10th day of January, 2019, favourite man-crush, Adekunle Gold was to wed his favourite woman, under the nose of prying Nigerians. If only Mrs Gold-to-be had given us all a hint of her dream wedding from uploading a scintillating proposal video on social media, a picture of a diamond or golden engagement ring or the colourful bridal shower and all the hullabaloo peculiar to the normal 21st century Nigerian ‘celebrity’ wedding, perhaps Nigerians, and indeed fans from around the world would have feasted on them and make the couple the trending topic of the week.
FG takes minimum wage to Council of State next week
Alas, Nigerians waited, especially their fans all over the nooks and corners of the world; bloggers, people who just loved to see wedding pictures, those who would have wanted to make them a point of contact to remind their God for a wedding like theirs, and those who would have loved to send the pictures to their supposed men-to-be, but who had refused to pop the “will you marry me” question and vice-versa.
I believe the transition of the norm of a wedding ceremony, held with closely knit family and friends as guests and with wedding albums and disks being the only property to tell the public eyes the story of how the couple’s memorable day commenced and ended, changed with the projection of fast paced social media sites, where a video that one could have waited days and months to get is sent online in seconds with more views than it would when only hard copies existed, an advancement with its two edged sides, positive and negative.
Could SimiGold have thought about these two sides and realised that their wedding could be better done without extreme publicity as the day really and only belonged to them and their few friends and family, consisting of about 300 guests invited strictly to their ceremony? Many Nigerians who loved the duo waited patiently for the pre-wedding,engagement and even the white wedding pictures but only a short video trended. The short clips of the bride’s friends in their beautiful blue and brown shades of Aso ebi and the couple’s short dance were the only tangible evidences that everyone had to share, to the disappointment of many who had waited all week just to mouth ‘aww’.
Their discreteness is highly applauded anyway; in the midst of social media monitoring, they held the ceremony in Lagos. As quiet as it was, it still gave many, mostly positive, reasons to talk about the wedding. It was loud without the normal noise that came with celebrity weddings. Well, the life of being a celebrity comes with that, and when they didn’t want the noise, the fans still did not make it quiet. Social media popped all day with throwback pictures and graphics designs of comic relief.
We should be out of the shock though. This couple have been in the relationship from the onset without us. We do not know all they have been through in the number of years their courtship or dating lasted and neither do we know their preferences. Then, what’s the noise about their continued privacy during the wedding and definitely afterward?
Few comments from the short clips uploaded still had some people castigating the choice of clothing worn which wasn’t ‘appropriate’ for a wedding. SimiGold must have thought about it deeply that most social media users in this part of the world were not all courteous and reserved. As private as the wedding was, there were still things pointed to by a few people that definitely could have ruined the mood for a newly wedded couple.
I believe Nigerian social media users should take caution from this and understand that privacy is privacy. There is a thin line between being a celebrity and being a private person and the former can be achieved. Life is a matter of choices and they made theirs. If they wanted this, it is beautiful to agree with that and let them be.
Conclusively It was still exciting to know that they tied the knot. Would the wedding pictures be released? Who knows? But we go dey alright lass lass.
Boluwade Favour writes from Ibadan, Oyo State
and then