Earlier this year, I got a call from a very good friend of mine, Churchill, informing me that he had added my name to the list of four groomsmen on his elder brother's wedding schedule to take place on Easter day.
"Did you say added? Haaa!" I asked him in a shocking tone because courtesy demands that I should be asked first before adding my name.
But then he replied, "Yes, na! You're saying as if you have options hahaha". We both laughed immediately when he added that.
That's the extent to which I'm close to his family; I'm considered a family member each time we visit home for the holiday season.
The date was fast approaching, and to make it easier for us to be in the same coloured wear, apparel was sent to us (each of us in our different cities). A WhatsApp group was created, and the four of us were added. A sample of the suit(jacket) pattern was sent to the group for us to meet our different tailors and sew accordingly.
It was a dark green material, which we were to use to sew a jacket and a waistcoat, and since we have our personal black trousers already, we would use that to match it up.
In the WhatsApp group chat, one of the participants suggested, "It's just two weeks until the wedding, and tailors will use this opportunity to bill us exorbitantly because it's an urgent work. I want to suggest that we leave the waistcoat to reduce the price of sewing."
It seems the guy just spoke my mind, so I instantly replied, "Thank you for this! My tailor is the type that doubles the price once the work is urgent. I agree with no waistcoat".
The other two guys agreed with it, and that's final.
The following day, I travelled to meet my tailor, and just as expected, he billed life out of me because it's urgent work.
"Oga, I know it's urgent work, but also consider that I'm a regular customer. You mustn't treat me this way. Let the charges be N14,000."
He looked at me and was surprised at the way I haggled the price from his initial tie of N20,000. "Jesus! You can't be serious", he said, dropping the apparel with me and going to sit down like he was no longer interested in doing the work.
"Okay, let's make it this way, let me pay N16,000, but you'll sew the waistcoat," I said to him as I walked to him to show him that I'm serious.
"Didn't you say the waistcoat is not needed at the wedding?" he asked.
"Yeah, it's not added, but I feel like I should appear better and smarter than them," I said, feeling like Albert Eistein with too much sense.
After much haggling, he sluggishly agreed to settle for N17,000 for everything (both the waistcoat). He did the work and got it delivered within six days.
Two days before the wedding, my friend Churchill, asked in the group chat whether our dresses were ready, and all of us confirmed that we were set.
Early in the morning on the wedding day, I got dressed up, walked to the mirror to check myself, and smiled seeing myself 'complete' in the mirror. But a thought came, "Don't you think you should pull off the waistcoat so you won't look different from others because it's a wedding and photos would be taken?", I pondered on it for a few minutes and wanted to align with the thought, but another thought knocked that idea down with, "Are you not seeing how fine you're in the dress? Don't you know you'll have different accolades by being different from them?". I bought the last idea, took my phone, took some selfies, and dashed out to the groom's house to wait for other groomsmen for all of us to move to the church together for church procession.
Immediately I got to the groom's compound, the ladies that were cooking in the front yard of the compound gazed their eyes on me, and I raised my shoulder higher to feel the moment. I highlighted from the bike, paid the bikeman, and he drove off while I walked majestically to the parlour.
Just as I was about to get to the parlour, the groom sighted me from where he was dressing and exclaimed, "Clear road for Kingsley!" I knew my plan to be better and smarter was working already. Hahahaš¤£
After I had settled down, I noticed that none of the groomsmen were there already, so I picked up my phone to call the other three groomsmen to know when they would be coming, and one of them, Dorcus by name, said he had just landed in the compound.
I stepped out to see if it was true, and lo and behold, it was him, and guess what? He was 'complete' too (he has a waistcoat).
"Dorcus!" I hailed him, and he hailed back, "Kingsley!" And we both burst into deep laughter that lasted for two minutes.
"Didn't we agreed to minus the waistcoat?" I asked him in a laughable tone.
"Hahah, return that question to yourself and answer me too," he said as we busted into another realm of laughter.
We were still there, trying to figure out the irrelevant distrust among the two of us, when the other two remaining groomsmen got dropped by a bike in the compound, looking 'complete' too.
"Jeeez! So assuming that I decided to minus the waistcoat, I would have been the odd one out. Thank God!" I joyfully began to praise God.
The wedding was a success, and the sweetest thing was that all of us wore the complete dress code, which added good vibes to the pictures we took.
Thanks for reading.