My Experience at the BBNWonderland by Bella Naija and Baileys Nigeria

Wow. So we are back to regular blogging.

My last vacation as a single woman is coming to an end today… so so sad. No more impromptu vacations, jetting off and leaving last minute. It is now the phase of checking in with your spouse’s schedule, traveling with kids and colourful bags, something I've never been used to.

Another phase of my life officially begins today because as soon as I step into town, I begin wedding preparations. Speaking of stepping into town, I'm going to be going home to meet all the freebies I got from bbnwonderland. Basically, I left bbnwonderland and went straight home, where I dumped all my things and headed straight to the airport so I've not really had time to bask in the euphoria.
Speaking about the event itself, I have mixed feelings about it. From what I have gathered so far, It was different from last year’s own in many aspects. It was bigger, more hyped and not just about the brides.

I was very glad to have been one of the 30 brides to get in, especially because the month of September wore me out physically, and I needed to wind down.

Pros
There was so much food
We got to make new friends with other brides.
Even if you don't get one of the major prizes, you go home with a lot of freebies
Baileysnigeria spent mad money on that event. It was an ‘appearance’ of excellence. Note the inverted comma.

Cons
Firstly, information dissemination was poor and conflicting. Gosh. One minute, someone is telling you to pack your bags cos you need to go home that night, the next minute, another person is asking you why you are packing your bags. We were particularly pissed when they interrupted our makeup sessions just so we could quickly check out by 12 noon. Meanwhile, they didn't inform us of having to do this before so it wasn't our fault. See some brides running around with half made up face only to find out that we had been locked out of our rooms and had to revalidate for extra 30 minutes.

So many teams worked on making that event a success, but the different teams were speaking

Secondly, it was all about the social media hype, such that the comfort of the brides was sacrificed at the expense of perfect poses and pictures. No jokes, we were on our feet from about 12 noon till past 7. No food or water, taking pictures all around, shooting videos, etc. brides were complaining about their feet and hunger (though I wasn't hungry cos I filled my stomach well during breakfast). When we got to the evening event, they didn't consider that we had been on our feet all day. We still stood out for like 2 more hours, taking pictures and networking. At least, this time we had water and canapés.

After a while, brides were squeezing their faces, they probably couldn't take it anymore. It was supposed to be a relaxing experience. But the thing is I didn't feel pampered. I felt stressed, and I think that defeated the whole purpose.

Finally they let us in, and the main event started. From then on, there was food and even more food for the after party than the whole party could finish, that you begin to wonder why the food galore wasn't spread throughout the day.

Anyway, I didn't stay for the after party cos it was almost 12 midnight and I wasn't planning to sleep there.

In all, I'm glad for the experience even though some people have commented that they don't see someone like me fitting into such setting. I'm glad I went.

I'm glad I saw the extent to which Bella Naija and baileysnigeria went to pull this through. It was really classy... with the likes of basket mouth, Toolz, Omotola and her husband, Banke Meshida, Noble Igwe, Klala Photography, etc anchoring the main event.

I'm also glad that they brought Betty Irabor and Aunty K to talk to us about marriage, and not just wedding celebrations, on the first night of the event.

If not for the poor communication and the sacrifice of brides comfort for social media hype, the event would have been perfect.

So will I advise anyone to go? Absolutely! I believe the next one will even be bigger, and the organizers would have seen the things that went wrong in this one, and improve on it next edition... hopefully.