Stephanie Linus on Love, Marriage and Wedding Destinations

Last year, actress Stephanie Linus, nee Okereke got married in a destination wedding set in Paris. With just about 400 guests, her wedding got me appreciating the benefits of destination weddings in this post. In an interview with Bellanija.com, Stephanie talks, among other things, about her reason for choosing Paris for her wedding, her anniversary, what attracted her to her husband, and why there should be no difference between the wedding and the marriage.


Excerpts...

It’s been a couple of weeks but congratulations on your one year wedding anniversary. How did you celebrate it?
... How time flies! It seems like my wedding was just yesterday... our anniversary was a special moment.

Looking back at the past one year, what has been the difference between your wedding and the actual marriage?
My husband and I are pals. Is the wedding supposed to be different from the marriage? I don’t know.

People say that the marriage is where the real test begins, where the real school is. Is that true?
Marriage is a school for you to learn, definitely. But when you know what your marriage is founded on, it is peaceful and you are content. I don’t see any difference because the wedding was about us. We weren’t trying to impress anyone with our wedding. It was how we saw ourselves and that is what we brought to fruition. There is still glamour in my marriage. We are just a young couple trying to have fun, live life and be happy. We set our own rules and we live by them and we try to make each other happy and be committed to ourselves and our marriage.

I’ve been itching to ask you this question for a long time. Why did you choose to have your wedding in Paris?
We just wanted something different. If it was in Nigeria, it would have been a real carnival but we wanted something serene. The love is a little bit sweeter in Paris, you know it can be hard in Nigeria (laughs). He feels he is a King and I’m a Queen, that is what we call ourselves, and we wanted to have this whole royal thingy going and we knew that we wouldn’t get that serenity in Lagos. We also wanted our families to bond, we wanted our parents to experience something new, to travel and relax. It was special to us and we wanted everyone around us to have special memories. We wanted something spiritual and divine. Not like we couldn’t get it here, but we wanted something to look back at with joy. We wanted to do us.

At what point did you know that Paris was the place?
I went to Cannes Film Festival with my sisters. When they left, my husband came to join me and the love was so sweet, it was so nice and beautiful and we knew Paris was the place.

Despite the fact that it was a destination wedding, you had a good number of family and friends from Nigeria join you.
It was just God showing himself. We told God that we wanted to get married in Paris and He should give us a sign if we should do Paris. And He gave us a sign. Arik Air donated one full return flight to us at no cost. Also, Air France gave us good discounts on tickets and the Embassy was really helpful with visas. It’s the grace of God that gets us things like that.

It’s never too late to ask this. What attracted you to your husband?
He is very tender and protective, a man’s man. As a woman, when a man loves you, you just know. You know that you’re in it together, regardless of any situation. With him, there was a conviction in my heart that this is it. He is a very charismatic, confident man and he knows who he is. He is sweet, humble, very loving and he takes good care of me.

I remember seeing pictures from your surprise birthday party a few months ago and you looked utterly surprised when you stepped in. How did he pull this off?
He doesn’t like surprises but he knows I like surprises. That day, when I woke up, I remember telling him “don’t try anything oh, I hope you’re not planning anything”. We planned to go out later in the evening so I went out to get my spa treatment and get my hair done. Apparently, my friend who was with me was already in on it. He had told her to delay me till a particular time. She had also told the people doing my nails, hair and facials to take their time and do it slowly. They all ganged up on me. Meanwhile, I was busy calling him, apologizing that I was late for our date. As I approached the house on my way back home, I saw a lot of cars parked around our house and then I just knew that he had done it again.

That sounds really sweet. Sometime in December, rumours swirled that you were pregnant. How did you take this?
It’s a good thing. That means they are praying for me to pop out the little ones. Yeah, the little ones are coming soon, but you know, everything is in God’s hands and I’ll have a baby when I’m supposed to have a baby. I am definitely not under any kind of pressure. We wish for it to happen and of course it’s going to happen.

See more pictures of Stephanie and Linus Idahosa's wedding here.