Earlier in the week
Civil ceremony
We begin our wedding week with the civil ceremony, completing the legal formalities ahead of Saturday’s celebrations.
Our story
Two rivers, long travelling apart, arriving together at the sea.
This day is more than a joining of two people. It is the meeting of Bille and Ijebu, Rivers and Ogun, our families, our histories and every person who helped us find our way here.
Some of you have known us since childhood, some met us at university, through work or only recently. On 7 November, we gather all those chapters in one place—and begin the next one together.
Christabel & Abiola
Our love story
From LinkedIn to “I do”
Sometimes the best love stories begin exactly where you’d never think to look for one.
In April 2023, we met at a mutual friend’s birthday party in London. A heartfelt shout-out goes to our friend Dola (Adedolapo Alege), an honourable member of the groom’s squad and the man who will happily take the credit for setting us up.
Abiola noticed Christabel almost immediately. Christabel noticed Abiola too and, let’s be honest, was entirely unbothered. He tried to strike up conversation. He offered her a lift home. He was, more than once, very politely turned down.
Persistent? Absolutely. Successful? Not that night. The only prize he went home with was a new LinkedIn connection. And for months, that was the whole story.
Then came late July 2023. Christabel, newly navigating the UK job market, opened LinkedIn out of equal parts curiosity and confusion. And there, smiling at the top of the feed, was one familiar, confident face. She messaged to ask whether he’d look over her CV.
What she expected was a few comments. What she got was a complete overhaul. He didn’t just edit the thing. He dismantled it, rebuilt it, challenged her to tell her story properly, and introduced her to recruiters in his network.
Somewhere between career advice, endless phone calls and messages that had less and less to do with CVs, a friendship quietly became something neither of us announced but both of us knew. And here we are.
What began with a chance meeting at a birthday party, and unexpectedly continued through LinkedIn, became a relationship that would span countries, countless flights, late-night phone calls and so many airport goodbyes. Distance only strengthened our conviction that we had found something worth holding onto.
Sometimes, forever begins with a connection request.
