Madamé Dubois is a design led event and destination planning company founded in 2023 by Kelliojor Awoh. Madamé Dubois began with an intimate proposal, where a client’s trust quickly evolved into the execution of a full wedding. It has established global footprints in Qatar, Portugal, London, South Africa, Mauritius, Morocco and Manchester. The Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Creative Director of Madamé Dubois, Kelliojor Awoh speaks on how Madamé Dubois prioritises how guests feel, move, and engage within each celebration.

Tell us about your brand Madamé Dubois – how do you do what you do?
Madamé Dubois is an event planning production company that is very big on experience. We try as much as possible not to do more typical event planning. So, what we do with our clients, even when we have consultations, we let them know that we’re pretty much big on experience. And one thing that we’ve noticed in the industry is how anything can be called luxury. The word luxury has been bastardised. But we try as much as possible for our clients to see value in every single event. Because, I mean, they’re spending so much money. So, it matters to us that there is value in every aspect of what you see on the day. It goes beyond just having physical decor and having nicely plated food on the plates. We’re big on experience from the moment you see the venue, before you get into the space, the entertainment on the day and we’re very, very heavy on entertainment because we feel like that is what drives and keeps people engaged as opposed to seeing a fantastic place looking decorated.

What inspires Madamé Dubois as a brand?
At its core, Madamé Dubois is driven by storytelling. Each event is intentionally curated to reflect the client’s personality, vision, and emotional journey. Rather than replicating trends, the brand focuses on crafting distinct experiences where every detail from spatial design to guest interaction is thoughtfully considered. Madame Dubois operates at the intersection of creativity and precision, consistently delivering events that are polished, intentional, and deeply engaging. The brand’s strength lies in its ability to transform ideas into well executed experiences that resonate long after the event ends.

Tell us about your background before you created the brand Madamé Dubois which has now become your identity?
I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, Victoria Island. After high school, I proceeded to study at Babcock University. I majored in PR and Advertising. I come from a family of three. I lost my dad when I was six years old. So, I was pretty much raised by my single mum who was also into the events industry. She was not necessarily a planner; she was an events decorator and baked wedding cakes.

How, when and why did you conceive the brand Madamé Dubois?
Madamé Dubois was never on my bingo cards. It was nothing I ever thought about to be honest. I never knew event planning was a thing. Growing up, in high school, I was very obsessed with Bella Naija and that was basically because of Elizabeth R. Ibidunni Ighodalo. Her event decor was always very dreamy, fantastic. However, my career as an event planner started out when I had to help a friend coordinate their wedding proposal. The planner literally was not present on the day. And there was another friend of theirs who I knew at the time and she said if you can salvage this entire situation and plan our proposal, you will plan the wedding and I did and that was how it started. Within the first eight months that we started, we successfully did like two destination weddings. We had one in Mauritius, another in Morocco. And it was like the moment we started it was uphill.

Tell us about the recent wedding event in Abuja that broke the social media and has now become a global event highlight? What would you say your brand did differently?
What we did differently for this particular event was focus on something that is personal to the client as we do with others but interestingly this is a car dealer and it only made sense for us to infuse his hobby. For our brand, we ensure no event is similar to something we’ve ever done. So, it was very easy to just quickly infuse his hobby into the event. What we created was not just having static cars in the space, cars were being driven in and out. It’s so interesting how we infused luxury cars into the settings and ambience on showcase. So, it was something that people had never seen. We’re happy that our clients pretty much give us the ability to be very expressive and this client was one client that was very trusting. It wasn’t just our client that enjoyed it, guests also did and this is how it became famous breaking the internet. The event featured performances from top artists including Seyi Vibez and Young Jonn, alongside appearances by high profile personalities such as Seyi Tinubu, Seyi Vodi, among others. Guests were treated to a theatrical display of luxury cars brought into the stage, with artists arriving and performing around them.

Was it your client’s idea to infuse the cars in the wedding settings for the achieved ambience?
It was his idea to actually have his cars but he didn’t know how that would play out and we struggled. To be very honest, it was difficult getting a venue that would accommodate that showcase as every single venue we went to in Abuja turned us down even the Transcorp Centre that we ended up using, we had to go through a series of denials until we finally spoke to the president of Transcorp, Madam Owen Omogiafo who finally approved because we do have a relationship with the branches of Transcorp – they are our clients as well and they know how we operate. So, every other event centre turned us down as they thought the idea was ridiculous – they were afraid I would destroy the event centre.

How did you make it work? How were you able to play out these different cars driving into the event stage without issues?
We literally had to book out the hall for days for set-up. We had to do rehearsals with the cars coming in and out, making sure that there would be no hazards or nothing would get pretty much damaged on the day of the event.

Weddings seem to be the brand’s selling point. Aside from weddings, do you anchor other events?
Aside from weddings, we do regular events, birthdays, and children’s parties. So, it’s not just weddings. Although, we started off with weddings so it’s only normal that people have branded us with weddings but we do other events. Parties, mini-parties, corporate events. We do all of that. One of our very first events within the first year we started the company was with the Dangote refinery launch as well. So, we do have a solid corporate clientele. However, weddings are our selling point, especially our destination weddings.

What Makes Destination weddings the selling point?
To be very honest, for someone who lives in Nigeria, the very first point of contact with our clients is they tell us they want to do a Nigerian wedding but the Nigerian market is extremely expensive. People talk about it as a joke, but being in it, I see how really, really expensive the Nigerian wedding is. So, when people tell me what their budget is, I’m like, you do know what, I can give you like five different options of countries that will give you better value for this at a way lesser amount. So, the moment I might give them the idea of what it will cost for a Nigerian wedding and what it will cost for a destination wedding in five different countries, they gravitate towards doing a destination wedding.

Tell us about your destination events – How do you navigate destinations across the globe especially for a brand that is based in Nigeria?
To be honest, the very first time we did this was very challenging. Most especially the time difference with these countries but we got a hang of it. We did lots of research before even clients reached out to us and then we understood what every economic difference would be to each country. For instance, this is what London will cost, this is what Morocco will cost and this is what somewhere like Egypt could potentially cost. So, when a client reaches out to us or even when they reach out directly for a destination event and they give us the budget, we already know what country to group you or categorise you into. So, it depends on the budget but one thing we like to do is that we like to be very realistic, I don’t like to sell dreams. So, if it turns out that we are struggling to make client budget work, our advice would be to do something you can easily afford as anything could happen to the destination country’s economy and one could get stuck. So, I would rather you do something that you can do easily and we still have money for the worst-case scenario.

Tell us about your international clientele and destination event settings – do you take a touch of Nigeria out there or you recreate a familiar ambience?
With a professional line of business like this, everything becomes very personal. We try as much as possible to have some sort of bond where we understand our clients, things they like, their hobbies and we try to create something that reflects their personality on the day of the wedding. So, we just don’t really do typical weddings, every event has to tell a story from the decor, the plating, even the food, we could have specials based on what they like, drinks and even down to entertainment. Our clients give us that liberty to be very expressive. Most of our clients, I would say, are based in London, Canada, and America.

Would you say you find event planning as a career quite demanding or effortless?
Actually, I find it very interesting. It can be stressful but I definitely enjoy it. On that day, when you see everything coming together, it’s the most rewarding experience especially when they give you feedback. It’s like they get to see that you really put your back into it. So, I don’t find it demanding. Creative work is interesting, the ability to be very expressive with our designs and especially when we have to align with clients in terms of creativity in a Madamé Dubois standard.

How lucrative is the event planning industry?
I wouldn’t really say event planning is lucrative especially Nigerian weddings but for destination weddings, well yes. Corporate events are also lucrative as they tend to pay more as opposed to weddings. More importantly, I feel like to be an event planner, it has to be a passion – genuine passion because the industry is now quite expensive as opposed to, six/eight years ago when planners could charge a percentage. Now, planners don’t have that liberty of charging a percentage, you have to charge a fee because when people are spending as high as 150 million, 200 million, 300 million, nobody’s going to give you 10% of that. You have to charge a fee for that.

What are the core responsibilities of an event planner?
An event planner takes charge of literally 95 per cent of the event. First things first, as an event planner, we literally come up with the creative design and direction for the event. I ensure that every event I have has a theme that must tell a story. I would rather we focus on making sure that we also create the design in terms of decor and ambience. Nothing must look similar to anything that has been done before. It’s something that we stand for at Madamé Dubois. We ensure our vendors know this. We make sure we’re the ones sourcing for the editorial team. photography, videography, food. We leave ‘aso ebi’ and souvenirs to the client as these are personal things. For every other thing else such as itinerary, MC, total ambience of the day, managing guest experience which is such a big deal, we make sure we put so much effort into that and the theme is aligned on that.

How do you deal with emergencies or vendor disappointment on the job?
We have experienced chaos which is actually normal for any event planner and you have to be a pro in chaos/crisis management. I’m one person that hates panic. I don’t panic because if my clients are panicking why should I panic? You’re paying me to be a problem solver. So. If you’re crying, I should be thinking of ways to make you stop crying immediately. One thing I do, after briefing on an event, is to always assess the risks that could potentially happen in that event. It’s also something my team has learnt from me. I tell them before you panic, think of five worst case scenarios to salvage the situation. For instance, we’ve had situations where it just starts raining suddenly. What do you do? We’ve had situations where my clients get scammed by international vendors.

We’ve had situations where the power goes out. We’ve had a situation in a destination wedding where the bride’s wedding dress didn’t come and we just had to salvage all that. We just try as much as possible to keep our clients calm, not panic and just think of a solution. One of the very first disasters we had was a destination wedding in Mauritius, the photographer, who is quite popular Bedge Pictures, he arrived and his entire camera were stolen. This was $10,000 that went. The clients were panicking, the photographer was in an emotional state. So, what I did was get into town, had to look for someone to rent a camera for him to work with and that was the way we were able to handle the situation. He never got those cameras back.

Between organising Nigerian and destination weddings, which one brings out your best on the job?
I would honestly say destination wedding; there is more structure. There is a huge gap between Nigerian vendors and destination wedding vendors. In Nigeria you’re having to manage too many expectations in terms of vendors arriving late, excuses of traffic, and most especially another huge problem is that event centres in Nigeria lack organisation they only care about making their money. But for destination, they pretty much care about what you’re trying to bring to life. So, if you see your brief is big and rich, they make sure there is space for you to properly come and settle. Same thing with destination vendors as well – you’re not having to chase anybody to do anything. Everybody knows what to do. Like They make event planning extremely easy. But here in Nigeria we have to do vendor meetings, you have to keep on following up. There are very few Nigerian vendors that I would say know what to do. Those are the people that we constantly use. All the way from photography, videography, food etc. The Nigerian working culture is not very encouraging. Their vendors don’t have permanent staff. They only have contract staff. Even the contract staff don’t care about the business, all they care about is to get paid on that day. So, the training they should have on how to manage guests or guest experience, they lack that. All they just care about is that they are wearing their uniform, they are doing whatever they have been told, get paid and they go home. Whereas for a destination event, they are showing their license, they are showing their health and safety policy, they know how to manage the hazard. They don’t need to call you and panic when something goes wrong. They are trained and they know it. So that’s the difference that sets them apart.

What would you say makes your brand unique?
We thrive on experience. The experiences we bring together for every event we have and our creative approach is one thing – we’re fantastic storytellers. So, we thrive on experience, storytelling and overall creative ambience.

Aside from your brand identity, tell us about your personality and lifestyle?
I am a very introverted person. If I’m not being introverted in my house, you will definitely find me in the church. People tease me with this. I enjoy my time. I enjoy traveling and seeing new places. Have different cultural experiences, different types of food. I’m a sucker for experiencing restaurants on holidays.