Modern educated women, of course, now have careers and are choosy about whom they marry. The "bride price" a man pays may be a sum of money to set the woman up in business. Modern women are generally in no hurry to get married.Before the marriage, the groom does the "wine-carrying ceremony".

This is when the man and his family takes wine to his bride-to-be's family and both families are formally introduced to each other, and the couples desire to get married each other is made known. If you want to oppose the union this is the time to speak up. The wedding date and the bride-price are also set at this meetings.

Today the old traditional weddings are changing and are becoming more like the Western-style church weddings. This has more or less become norm in Nigeria today. Eventhough you are born and raised in Nigeria it is still likely to have a Western-style wedding when you are getting married. And the wedding is usually with a church ceremony with a white bride and a reception after the ceremony. The reason behind this can be the Nigerian Church and the missionaries who influenced the Church and the African tribes. But there are some tribes in Nigeria who still live after the old traditions and are preforming the tradtioally wedding ceremonies.

The first step in the wedding process is the first meeting with the both involving families where they investigate each other. At this occation they groom's family donate some gifts to the bride's family, consisting mostly of cattles, yams or money. After this the ceremony the bride comes to live with the groom and his family, and if that turns out to work out a weddingfeast is held. After thet ceremonial feast he bride is concidered married to the groom and his family.

Today's Nigerian weddings tend to follow the Western style traditions which means that the weddings are held in Churches with with dresses, suit, reception etc. But during the reception bride couples usually wear traditional clothes have traditional food and a combination of Aerican and traditional music. Here two diffrent cultures are meeting and this is something that has become more common in the Nigerian weddings today. The Western societies are influencing the African societies with the traditional Western wedding norms with white dresses, receptions etc.

The bride should be a virgin befor the actual wedding, but today there are exceptions. Nowadays the couples usually want to ensure themselves that they can have children, so the bride could be pregnant at the wedding or all ready have children. But this is not allowed in the Nigerian areas with Christian religion. Polygamy marriages exist and are legal in Nigeria, but again the Christian religion forbids it. Pologamy marriages have though become less common in today's Nigeria. 

This is due to the fact that a man in such a marriage is responsible to provide for his family and to provide for a family is expensive. Because of the economical situation in Nigeria it has become less common with polygamy marriages.