Between 19 and 25 November 2017, Banky W and Adesua Etomi got married three times.
The singer and the actress held their traditional wedding at the Landmark Event Centre in Lagos on 19 November, a court wedding on 20 November, and a white wedding in Cape Town, South Africa, on 25 November. The hashtag the couple used, #BAAD2017, built from their initials, trended across Nigerian social media for days and became the model for a generation of celebrity wedding hashtags.
Who they are
Olubankole Wellington, known as Banky W, is a singer, record label founder and later politician who built his career on smooth R&B and love songs, and who ran the label Empire Mates Entertainment, home at one time to Wizkid. Adesua Etomi is an award-winning actress known for films including The Wedding Party (2016), in which she played a bride.
The two had worked together on screen before they began dating, and their relationship was kept quiet until their engagement, which Banky W announced with a video that went viral.
The Lagos traditional wedding
Adesua’s family is from Edo State and Banky’s is Yoruba, and the traditional ceremony brought both cultures together. The guest list at the Landmark Event Centre included many of the biggest names in Nigerian entertainment, from comedians Bovi and Basketmouth to rapper M.I Abaga, filmmaker Kemi Adetiba and actresses Juliet Ibrahim and Sola Sobowale.
Guests wore aso-ebi in the couple’s colours, and the photographs of the couple in traditional attire spread fast on Instagram and wedding blogs.
Cape Town
For the white wedding, the couple flew to Cape Town with a small group of close friends and family. The setting, with mountain views and vineyard-style scenery, made the photographs some of the most shared wedding images of the year in Nigeria. It also helped popularise the idea of Nigerian couples holding destination white weddings abroad after a big traditional wedding at home.
Why it set the tone
#BAAD2017 showed how a celebrity wedding could be managed as a media event: a distinctive hashtag, a steady release of official photographs and videos, and control over what was shared. It also showed how much public interest a couple’s love story could generate, especially when the couple had built goodwill with their fans.
Wedding planners, photographers and fashion designers involved in the ceremonies saw their profiles rise, and “the BAAD wedding” became a reference point in Nigerian wedding conversations.
Since the wedding
The couple have spoken publicly about their marriage over the years, including the loss of pregnancies and the birth of their son. They are often held up by fans as one of Nollywood and Nigerian music’s most stable couples.
The hashtag lasted a week. Nigerian couples have been building their own versions of it, with their initials and the year, ever since.
