On our wedding day nothing went according to plan, but luckily both of us were very calm and everything worked out at the end of the day. For example the pastor forgot that we wrote our own vows, but that gave us the opportunity for a romantic moment alone during the couple's shoot, and made for great photos.
My husband looked at me like he had never done before when I was walking down the isle.
While waiting to go in to the church, my father and I shared a very blessed moment outside, as we had decided to park the car further away and take a longer walk to the church.
I had a breathtaking moment with each special person before and during the wedding, it was the best day of my life.
We did!!! We went to Wildernis close to Knysna. The place we stayed at, Porcupine pie, was fantastic.
I had an up-do with a golden Greek style headband, the make-up artist from Krayolan Centurion, did a romantic style to exclaim my eyes with a light nude pink lipstick. The dress was absolutely perfect, all lace with thick lace & diamante should finishing. I wore flat, pointy pink-pearl shoes (which was later traded in for a pair of diamante sandals). I wore lace underwear from bra's-n-things and my sister bought me a rose gold necklace as something new and she borrowed me a pair of earrings that match as something borrowed. My eldest sister also gave me a tiny flower to add to the inside of my dress as the something old and something blue. I have never looked so beautiful, thanks to all the wonderful women!
Tava lingwe Game Lodge, just outside Parys.
www.tavalingwe.co.za
The guests were able to stay for the night on the premises and the owners were so involved and helpful, they even gave up their own house to be used for accommodation for the evening.
The guests also stayed at Phirimane wedding venue and made use of safari.com for alternative accommodation.
My sister and I went to the gym 3 times a week, Virgin Active in Centurion.
We went jogging (less often than we planned for, unfortunately)
I went for 2 IPL sessions for dark circles under my eyes.
Mostly we tried to eat healthy and drink lots of water.
When we started to plan everything, we made a list of our favourite things to ensure we introduce a little bit of ourselves in the decor:
My husband wanted desperately to have wood elements in the decor/wedding favors and I wanted a relaxed atmosphere.
So as a surprise for my husband, a friend of ours helped me, and we made a wooden under plate from Maranti wood with our logo carved in as a gift for each guest. We have a very soft peach napkin down the middle of the under plate and a wooden heart name tag with a thank you tag. The flowers were a wedding gift from a very good friend of mine and they were under a glass dome on a round wooden centerpiece. We had open books carved out with succulents inside and various glass domes and wooden stands with candles and draped moss pieces and a subtle use of duck egg blue. The gifts area had vintage suitcases with candles around and the main table had our name in the front in big letter with lights draping from the table. The church was very plain with old milk cans outside at the welcoming/confetti table, also planted with succulents. The church is under the trees, and we wanted to keep the look as natural as possible with only a few duck egg blue items here and there. We don't like cake, so we had cheese stacked, we love ice cream and sweeties, so we had an ice-cream and sweets buffet, which was also the photo-corner, as a friend of mine built the sweets corner for us. we had so much help from friends, I only needed to rent a few glass domes and other small accessories.
My husband looked so handsome:
He had a blue suit from coquis, tan belt and shoes, a white shirt, and polka-dot colorful socks. the broaches were wood carvings with peach polka dot ribbon at the bottom, and he had a normal tie. I asked him to keep his beard for the wedding.
The groomsmen had the same suit pants, shirt,broach and shoes, but with tan suspenders and striped colorful socks and bow-ties.
The make-up artist also exclaimed the eyes of the bridesmaids, but used a different nude lip stick for them.
Their hair were braided along the side, but was a down style with curls on the ends.
Their dresses' color matched the ties of the men, and was a sweetheart cut with an a-line from below the bust.
They wore different shoes, as they are all much shorter than I am and wanted to wear heels.
Our preacher from my home town officiated the wedding
Rindi Swan and her husband was the photographer and videographer.
Rindi has a very bubbly personality and we knew we wanted to use her from the moment we met her.
She is so involved in our lives even now after the wedding, she has the perfect personality for photography and she brought the best out of us - we are not fond of photo shoots, but with them, it was not a mission at all.
We didn't have a photo booth, but Rindi allowed us to take table photos to ensure we have pics of all the guests.
Nope
We didn't use transport.
As mentioned, we are not fond of cake, so we had the cheese-wheel cake with fresh baked breads, jams, biltong, droëwors and other confectioneries as a starter.
The venue has a chef, and the food was stunning, we wanted a traditional farm-style meal and the cheff did not let us down, there was a lamb on the spit, game pie, baked chicken, pumpkin, veggies, various salads and more than enough food (we were given a doggy bag on honeymoon).
Lastly we had the ice cream and sweets buffet for pudding
A friend of mine, Juzelle Grové designed the most perfect stationary and the printing was done by Pomogranit in Pretoria East.
We opened the dance floor immediately when we entered the reception.
And then we started off with Ellie Goulding's "how long will I love you", then we had a few moments of "Everything" by Micheal Bubble, we went back to grease with "the one that I want" and ended the number with "marry you" by Bruno Mars. We had some help from Arthur Murray dance academy in Pretoria moot.
We had a few blessing-speeches and then we asked the DJ for "samsara" our friends lost their minds on the dance floor, we had so much fun and it was such a privilege to have all our amazing witnesses at our most special day, not to mention the huge role they all played in getting all the work done before and after the wedding. Our friends put in a days' leave on the Friday to help us set up everything and they made a whole weekend of the wedding - I thought it doesn't get more special than that!!!
Until the MC, also a great friend of ours, called us on stage and asked us to remove our shoes for a little show and tell that the friends set up for us - we learned a lot about each other on our wedding night, LOL.
We didn't have a live band, but we had awesome sound and the best crowd - we had the time of our lives!
