A Critical Look at Wedding Committees

Most weddings in Kenya are planned through committees. This may be a group of friends, family and workmates brought together to help plan the wedding. Even the group planning could have the roles assigned to follow up on vendors or even to be in charge of the vendors during the wedding. Most committees help to raise money for the wedding. Sometimes one can be in up to 3 committees a year which require not only raising the amount for the weddings but also money to be part of the bridal team and all expenses you require to met by you the individual.

Weddings are planned events. We plan to get married if we wish to do so. How do we make it easy for those who are assisting us to raise the cash. There are several things

Save, save and save. Its important for the couple to have saved some money on their own before involving others. A common scenario is where the couple want a wedding an average budget of Ksh. 500,000 or more and how much have they set aside? Well, they are waiting for the committee to help them raise the whole amount.Money isn't the only thing under consideration. The time too is important having weekly meeting for a span of 7 months and paying venues and drinks for meeting including goat eating and selling items to raise the amount? We can save on the time required to meet to be able to cover alot instead of weekly meetings. And in the end time is money.

Budget plans. I believe its important to have a budget and at the back of our mind how much we are willing to spend on the wedding. Failure of which if the amount was Ksh. 500,000/= it escalates to Ksh. 650,000/= and no one knows what happened or how they got there. Part of the budget should also include emergency amount. Working with a budget helps to adjust as necessary when an amount increases where to reduce or do away with all together. The wedding budget should also include honeymoon budget and its important to pay for your own rather than leave it to the committee to factor it into the amount they are raising.

Do something. Most people meet in a committee with nothing done. A better approach would be the couple identify vendors with their own savings, pay up deposits for everything or a majority of the things required so that the committee is spared the time to identify and bring quotations from 5 or so vendors to be approved on the basis of price or being known to a member. Most couple have been part of a previous committee so most vendors used are known to them whether they liked the services they offered to a friend or not. If they did they could take and keep the contact especially if they know they have a wedding coming up in a few months it saves them the time to visit a future event planned by the vendor. There is also a down side to this if a committee members wants to gift you something you have already done a down payment which could save you money that would be used elsewhere.


Be flexible. Money limits what we can get for the wedding. Just because the same committee raised 600k for someone else a few months ago they might not be in a position to raise even half of that amount for you because they have had a funeral committee to be part of, person commitments that they have had to pay for and if you didn't contribute much to the wedding of a friend they might just contribute the same amount to you which might not add much towards the budget.Or even those who pledge a large amount but due to personal disasters can only give a quarter or half of the promised amount. A lot of factors come into play when dealing with a committee but be flexible enough to adjust to the kind of wedding that you can afford considering the cash at hand against the wedding you believe you deserve.