Finding a modest wedding gown can be quite tricky, especially if you’re looking at off the rack options.
So question to brides who’ve done this before - How did you find a dress? How much did you spend on your wedding dress? Was it worth it?
Muslim brides, what was your experience with finding a wedding gown?
I had a collection on instagram with pictures of gowns and outfits that I liked from wedding accounts. So, it was easy to pick out the styles I wanted.
Giving your material to the tailor on time is really important. My wedding was in December, and the tailors I wanted were fully booked for the year. I found out about Tosho Woods through a friend.
I really liked my dress, because she’s muslim, so she really understood how well I had to be covered and the outfit also came with a matching scarf.
The material cost over a 100k for 5 yards, and sewing was also over a 100k. So I’d say the second dress cost over 200k in total. Well, I think it was that expensive because of short notice.
My nikkah dress was by Ejiro Amos Tafiri, and she made my komole. I wanted a komole, but trusted her to make it fancy and nice, which she did. Again I can’t remember how much that cost, because she made the outfit just a couple of days to the wedding.
I loved my outfits, and it was totally worth it.
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So first of all, nothing went according to plan. Around February, I decided to get married in June. 4 months was enough to plan but the problem was I wasn’t living in Nigeria. I planned to go to Lagos 6 days to the wedding.
The plan was to wear four outfits for the four events - court wedding, engagement (traditional wedding), aqdu nikkah, and the reception.
All my tailors except one disappointed me in epic proportions. Keep in mind that I could only rant to them on WhatsApp because I wasn’t in Nigeria.
The tailor who didn’t disappoint was the one I could always reach. She was amazing and kept sending me daily updates of my clothes.
The lady who was to make the court outfit was just flat out unavailable. She was either elusive or lying.
She came highly recommended so I didn’t even foresee all the problems. At the end of the day, she was able to produce something I could wear but the tail of the jumpsuit was too damn long. I had to manage it.
My first engagement aso Oke was messed up and the tailor was a huge disappointment (this is an euphemism).
We had to make another one from scratch with new material and a new tailor (the only tailor who came correct for me).
I really wanted cadet blue but I ended up with mainstream royal blue (long story) .
In retrospect, I should have taken the destiny of my aso oke into my own hands.
I should have just used an IG vendor but for numerous reasons I’d rather not mention here, I did not and I regret it terribly.
My only consolation for the aso Oke is that the tailor did a great job with the material she was given.
One tailor made both my nikkah and reception dresses.
She also came highly recommended and she’s someone I’ve known for years. Problem I had with her was that she was unavailable.
I was 6000km away from Lagos and the least I expected her to be was to be reachable. I kept getting excuses after excuses - no data, phone failure, no electricity etc.
I was honestly fed up and I couldn’t even shout because I’m not a confrontational person.
I got to Lagos like 6 days to the wedding only to find out that the dresses for the aqdu and reception were too tight for me.
You know the worst part? THE TAILOR DID NOT LEAVE ENOUGH ALLOWANCE. Infact, she cut out the extra material for the allowance so we had little to work with.
It took the genius and skill of a tailor around my house to fix it. Else, I’d have just had to buy a ready-made dress after spending so much money trying to sew.
I had a friend in Lagos who was helping me stay on the neck of these tailors while I was away though.
I probably would have lost it if not for her. She (plus my cousin) were the people who went to get material for my dresses.
I didn’t really like the fact that I couldn’t go fabric shopping for myself so that made me lowkey sad too. If I had the chance to go myself, I would have had infinite patience to pick what I really liked.
But I had to sort of settle because of my unique situation.
I appreciate that my case is not the regular case (I pretty much had to control things remotely) and I there are many things I wish I could go back to change.
Worst part is I didn’t get to wear the aqdu dress at all (another long story). Writing and remembering this makes me extremely sad because it is almost as if nothing about the way I was supposed to look went according to plan.
All these hurts everytime I remember because my look was the only thing I was concerned about/in charge of and things still went wrong with it.
The most painful part is people kept telling me it was the best wedding they had attended and they had loads to eat and that it was so organised etc.
But (and I don’t mean to be ungrateful), it didn’t feel that way for me because of the numerous things that went wrong with my clothes.
Cost:
Court jumpsuit: I don’t remember tbh. Maybe like 25k.
Engagement aso Oke: I didn’t pay for it but I think my mum spent about 70k.
Aqdu & Reception dresses: I also can’t remember but maybe I spent between 150-200 on both.
Tip:
- Do not do traditional wedding or do it on a different day. Those people are epic time wasters.
-If you can, avoid planning your wedding remotely.
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Take complete charge of the things that matter to you.( I know this because of the long story around my aso Oke)
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Pick your fabric yourself if possible
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In the name of God, let your tailors be accessible and available people. Else, it will end in tears.
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If your clothes are being made for you in absentia, tell the tailor to put like 5 inches of allowance just incase.
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I already had an idea of what my wedding dress would look like before getting married and because I wanted something I could wear later to avoid wastage of resources, I had my foster mother make it for me. It was quite easy but I was a bit indecisive of the style I wanted 
but later settled for one… it was modest and it came out lovely.
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Hi @MoriamB
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Glad to hear that your experience went well.Helpful tip on saving liked styles on Instagram!
Hi @Ade
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Sorry to hear about your experience - I imagine this is not an isolated experience with bespoke designs. The tips you have shared will be useful for new brides on their own journey!
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Good idea on choosing a dress you could wear later. We’d love to explore that in a future post!
I knew I wasn’t gonna find ready made dresses online, so I opted for getting fabrics and sewing. For my Aqdu/introduction, got my fabric for 30k, sewed it for 8K, I wore an Alkimba which was roughly 20k (fabric, sewing, and buying of trimmings, trimmings are expensive sha)
For the Wedding, I got a white fabric which was 30k, sewed a ball wedding dress for 40k, the reception wear was a pink lace fabric which was like 50k or so and was sewed for 35k and my veils hijab styling and pins were like 20k too.
All my tailor’s delivered at the right times, I didn’t have any problems with them
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As soon as my wedding date was fixed I was already thinking of what to wear. I wasn’t going to wear anything that would make wearing my jilbab uncomfortable or look funny. I started searching for pictures all over the Internet. I finally found a very pretty dress on Pinterest. I didn’t even bother with the vendor because it was priced in dollarzzzz. I did the naira equivalent and I was like WaWu Fati all na vanity… Lol. I just saved the picture and decided to get someone who could make the exact thing. My friend recommended a designer and even though she was quite expensive, I’d be spending way less than having to buy but we had a slight issue, getting the exact kind of fabric. The designer insisted that if we couldn’t get something close to the fabric in the picture I’d have to choose another style but thankfully, after combing the market we found something. I think we got it at 8k or 9k per yard can’t remember exactly. My designer collected 25k after plenty begging because I sure wasn’t going to make the dress for an amount more than the fabric cost. My jilbab was 10k and this was because my mother insisted that it had to be different from my regular jilbab because na me be iyawo"
so I had to pay extra for a lace trimming that was attached to the sleeve. In total I spent about 70k on my wedding dress which wasn’t so bad considering I could have spent more if I had to buy a ready made wedding gown. And Ohh my designer didn’t dissapoint at all… The dress was 
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Mine was pretty easy.
My twin already had a style (a ball reception gown) she wanted. She shared it with me and it was perfect!
I had a tailor in mind, she made my colleague’s wedding gown and I liked her work.
We reached out to her and she was more than happy to take up the job. We even got a discount based on the fact she is a twin herself and had always prayed to cater to twin brides. We were her dream come true basically 
.
Her twin was also my colleague at work, so that helped too.
We eventually paid about 150k for each dress (she got the fabrics too). She did a pretty good job.
You can check her out on IG @purplebyjfer.
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I had an idea of what I wanted cos I will be wearing it under my jilbab. So I got the fabric and made it myself. 
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My sister-in-law was going to pay for my nikkah dress, so I made sure it was a 2-in-1 kind of style to ensure she didn’t spend so much. I bought the asooke for my engagement at 40k and had the sewing covered by my lovely SIL. Prior to buying materials or choosing styles, I had some pictures downloaded on Pinterest. I knew I wanted and didn’t want a ball gown, so I opted for a style where the ball part of my nikkah dress would be detachable by the time it was reception. That was how my 2-in-1 dress was borne. The tailor sent me pictures of stylish sleeves, so I picked 2 that I had never seen before and made it the “creative” parts of my clothes.
My new sister-in-law (on my husband’s side) helped with my long, beautiful veil - which served as something borrowed, and one of my awesome friends got me my turban, which was 30k. Overall, I think we spent 150k or so on sewing the engagement style (designed that myself) and the nikkah + reception style (with over 10 yards of fabric for this).
I had an idea of what type of shoes and purse I wanted, so all it took was a trip to the market with my mom and we got exactly that - with lovely accessories to match. I don’t remember exactly how much they cost at the time but I’m pretty sure they were super cheap. I still wear my wedding shoes outside that day and my dress is intact for when I need it on any other occasion (without the train of course).
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For me, it was very important that all my outfits for my wedding were stylish and modest. Here’s a list of outfits and how much they cost me.
Asooke 1 - 150k - IG vendor
Asooke 2 - 200k - IG vendor
Nikkah outfit - Tailor recommended by my wedding planner
- Fabric 25k (5 yards)
- Sewing 25k
Reception Outfit -Tailor recommended by my wedding planner
- Fabric 75k (6 yards)
- Sewing 50k
Traditional Kanuri Outfit
- Was gifted to me by an aunt, but wouldn’t have cost more than 20k
Some tips i’d give brides
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The first and most important would be to always have modesty at the back of your mind. I personally didn’t want a situation where in the future I would look back on some of my outfits and be filled with regret. Allah would certainly reward you for it.
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Make sure you start to put your outfits together well ahead of time. For some of my outfits the tailor requested that I pick them up literally a week or so to the wedding. My wedding was in Abuja and my outfits were being picked up from Lagos, so I found myself sitting in the tailor’s shop the day before my flight to Abuja waiting for my outfits to be ready. I didn’t even have time to try on the outfits and make sure they were okay. I went to Abuja with them like that and that’s when I discovered that some amendments needed to be made. I had to find someone in Abuja that would fix my outfits and this was just three days to do wedding, so that really stressed me out.
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Another important tip is to identify what colors look good on you and identify what your style is. Personally I know cool tones look good on my skin and my style is very simple, so I wanted all my outfits to be same. However, for one of the outfits my mom wanted me to go above and beyond. Stones, glitters, pearls etc…so I ended up going with that for that particular outfit. It was nice and looked good, but wasn’t very comfortable for me. In hindsight I think I should’ve stuck to what works best for me but I wanted to make my mom happy. No regrets though.
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It’s also important to identify your budget. There’s no point spending so much money on what you cannot afford because you want to keep up with the Joneses. But if you can afford to, by all means please do.
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I honestly can’t relate! Found a dress online, sent to my mum’s tailor, she got the material and sewed it for about 10k and she nailed it
I had a small and private wedding so I wasn’t going to spend Soo much on a dress. And yes I rocked it alot to events after my wedding.
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We loved seeing your detailed breakdown! And glad you had no issues with tailors - we’ve all heard the tales!
Hi @_fateemah
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We would feel the same way if we saw the price in dollarzzzz! Glad to hear your dress came out tops!
Hi @Tawakalt
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Twin magic - we love to see it! And did we mention, your picture is giving us princess feels #beautiful
Hi @Rehana
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I’m sure we’re not the only ones wishing we could sew our outfits! #talent
Hi @Lola_OA
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Firstly shout out to your SIL! Another shout to your 2-in-1 dress, we’re loving more and more the concept of being able to reuse wedding gowns!
Hi @hauwa
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We love all your tips to our future brides, especially identifying what colours suit us!
Hi @Khayr
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Glad to hear your tailor came through! Given the current situation, I think we’re all learning to appreciate small and private weddings a bit better
A lot of good insights on here…looks like getting my dress right is the number one item on the to do list