Berry Happy New Year from a Natural Hair Bride

Happy New Year everybody!!!!!!!!!!

I know, I know, it's already 10 days into the year, but who cares? It's MY first post here for 2014 and I have to say I missed all y'all! Did you miss me? I hope you did. I can't remember if I told you why I took a blogging break, but if I didn't, it's cos my WEDDING finally happened!!! And yes, yes, yes, I was a PROUD NATURAL HAIR BRIDE! See, all those posts of natural hair wedding styles came in handy! I just want to share some pictures with you, paying particular attention to my hair, because who cares about the dress, cake, food, location, etc, right? Okay, I'm kidding. But since this is a hair blog, I just want to focus on the hair aspect of the wedding.

REGISTRY WEDDING
For my registry ceremony, I decided to do my hair myself because I wanted to cut costs, and plus I literally walked to the marriage registry from my office and didn't have time to spare. The day before, I did an Oil Treatment to make sure my hair was well conditioned and moisturized. I opted for an updo because it was a formal occasion, and I wanted to use the hair comb pictured (I used the hair comb as a bridesmaid in my friend's weddings in 2010, and it came in handy).

TRADITIONAL WEDDING
This one was tricky. As Africans, we usually have traditional ceremonies with family members involved, and traditional attire worn. Well, for my traditional wedding, I wore 5 different outfits with different head coverings! So putting my hair in one style wasn't feasible or practical. Again, I DC'd my hair the day before and put it in single plaits/braids overnight, to help stretch it. For my first and fifth outfits, I wore a gele (Nigerian headwrap). For my third outfit, I wore a traditional Rivers State coral hat. For my fourth outfit, I had a jeweled gold headpiece.

For my second outfit, which was the most interesting hair-wise, my hair was put in the traditional Ogoni (that's where I'm from) style. It consisted of putting my hair into 5 sections, and in the middle of each section, a small patch of hair was threaded up and placed through a straw-like bamboo thingy, with the surrounding hairs gathered and threaded at the tip, and finally finished up with coral beads. This process took 30 minutes and unfortunately, I was so harried and hurried, that when the old woman used her teeny-tiny comb, I didn't protest. Even after I had to change into my third outfit, I didn't care about carefully removing the thread, which resulted in seriously tangled hair!

WHITE WEDDING
Well, after the traditional wedding, I was exhausted and my hair suffered for it. I had lost my scarf/bonnet, was too busy with family for Christmas, that I barely paid any attention to my hair. As a result, when Omozo of O'Naturals woke me up bright and early on the wedding day, she asked, "What have you done to your hair?!?!" She then proceeded to detangle (mmm), DC/steam (ooooooh), wash (yessssss), and massage (MMM OOOH LA LA) my hair/scalp. And then, she and her helper (Aunty Vero) proceeded to style my hair. The whole process took about 5 hours, but it was oh-so necessary. Some friends and family didn't know if/how I would pull off a natural hairstyle for my wedding, but EVERYONE LOVED IT!!!

Source - O'Naturals Instagram

And so, my dears, this is the end of my wedding hair story. I hope you enjoyed the pictures and commentary. I have more pictures on my blog and on Instagram (@berrydakara). For next week's post, I'll be discussing 2014 Hairsolutions, so get ready to share what your goals are for the year ahead.

Have a berry pretty weekend!!!
Berry Dakara.