Ken and Barbie's Traditional Nigerian Wedding

I stumbled upon a photo and thought it was cute. Decided to dig deeper into finding the brilliant mind that came up with this. When found, I had no choice but to share with you guys.

It's a photo-shoot/story of a Nigerian traditional wedding brilliantly done by photographer Obi Nwokedi. He got his inspiration from a black barbie shoot on Italian Vogue online and decided to make his own creation with the help of his talented wife. This project took him approximately 5months. I thought it was beautiful and well put together with insane outfits. The models are dynamic...and yes, they're barbies!

For those of you that are unfamiliar with the tradition, a traditional wedding, also called marriage ceremony are done by most Nigerians before they their church wedding. This is done in various ways by many tribes which not only involves the future husband and wife, but also their families, extended families and the community.

((((To learn more, visit: Igbo Traditional Wedding and Yoruba Traditional Wedding))))

With his busy schedule, I got a hold of Obi to ask some questions some of you might have. Here's what he was able to share with me:

First and foremost, who designed the beautiful attires? They were designed by my wife.

What inspired you to come up with this scenario? I got inspiration primarily from vogue Italia's Black Barbie shoot.

How long did this project take? About 5 months ... working on and off.

I know working with barbies, and other tiny details can be difficult. How did you manage? Yes it was pretty difficult, too many tiny details involved. Then again barbie dolls don't stand (which I find ridiculous), so i had to build a stage and string most of them up like puppets, and then get rid of the strings in Photoshop. Further, hardly any of the items were available in the UK. Most were purchased from the United States and from the far east.

Advice to other people trying to recreate this piece? Advice? ... hope you have plenty of time and patience.

Obi is a Nigerian photographer based in the UK. Thanks for your time Obi.
Now feed your eyes people! :-)

Bride to be, Barbie in her PJs

Pretty tiny loubs, eh?

Accessories 

Prepping

Make-Up

She gets to use her iPad too

Barbie and friends

Touching up

Bride to be

Groom to be

The table is set!

Groom to be, Ken and his folks

Greeting the bride's family 

Both family interacting

Barbie and her girlies

Bring the bride

Barbie 

Seated at the dinner table

Barbie and Ken

On the dance floor

Fin

I hope you enjoyed this one-of-a-kind tale as much as I did.

Happy Father's Day to every great man.

xxxo