The morning of our wedding I woke up, very calm, and the first thing my dad told me was "don't worry about the weather". I panicked and rushed outside finding that it was a cloudy morning. "This was something I could work with," I told myself and continued with my day. When we arrived at the venue I heard a little bird saying that my soon to be husband is a nervous wreck. This, on the other hand, made me panic. We didn't speak for two days before the wedding as this is a family tradition, but the morning of the wedding when I heard the news, I stole my dad's phone and called him just to tell him to calm down and that everything is in order at the venue. This was one of the best moments, knowing that the next time I will see him will be when we are standing in front of the altar. His voice was some sort of calming mechanism for me as well. This was one of the best moments of our wedding.
When I had my wedding dress on and everything was set to go, my dad walked into the room. This was the most emotional moment of the whole wedding. I really worked hard not to cry, because I knew that once I started I won't be able to stop. My dad took one look at me and it was like his heart was busy melting. I tried so hard to hold it back and look the other way. His eyes turned red and all he wanted to do is tell me that I am the most beautiful bride that he had ever seen. This was the moment my heart felt like the Titanic. As a bride, I was trying to understand what it must have felt like for a father to give his baby girl away to another man hoping and praying that, that man will look after her the way you did. This was why this moment was one of the biggest moments.
Only brides would understand the feeling you get when you walk down the aisle and the only person you can see is your soon to be husband. The emotions are the best part of it all to me. The facial expressions. To be honest, that small little moment, when you walk down the aisle, feels like your life is in slow motion and fast forward at the same time. The moment is so big and so special that you just want to pause time. When the moment came and I walked down the aisle my soon to be husband tried to hold in his tears, but that beautiful baby blue eyes of his turned red and the tears came rolling down. My brother, on the other hand, cried so hard, it was one of the sweetest things that I have seen in my life. This was so special because this is what love is. My whole life there was some sort of tough love between my brother and I, until my wedding day.
Another thing that we won't ever forget was when we had our first dance. This was so funny and frustrating at the same time. We mixed it up a bit, first I danced with my father and my husband danced with his mother and then they gave us to each other and our dance began. We weren't supposed to dance the whole song with our parents, but the DJ just left the song to play till the end. When we finally were standing face to face ready for our dance, I could see the stress in my husband's eyes. The song began and he was blank, there was nothing. This moment was so sweet because we improvised. Every now and then at our wedding we realized that we are married and that split second was so astonishing, because in all fairness we waited 7 years for this moment.
My Husband and I went on a two-day honeymoon. It was amazing and we were so blessed. If it wasn't for the close family we would have never gotten the opportunity to go on a honeymoon. This was really amazing. The package included a full body massage for both of us, a game drive, dinner bed and breakfast. It was two hours drive from Pretoria. The package was for the Saturday night and the Sunday night, because of the fact that we got married on a Friday.
When the time arrived for us to leave for our honeymoon, we were so tired and exhausted. We finally arrived at Mangwa Valley lodge at 4 pm the Saturday afternoon. The service that we got when we arrived was so amazing, the people were so friendly and helpful. When we got to our honeymoon suite we were breathless. It was beautiful. It felt unreal. This is definitely worth the experience. We had dinner at the boma with candles everywhere, a real safari experience. We had cocktails and the best food ever. You know how everyone always asks you when it's your birthday "how does it feel"? Well being married feels completely different. It's like falling in love with your husband all over again. Well, that's how I felt. That butterfly feeling in your tummy, the indescribable happy feeling where you just want to scream. This is what I think and believe marriage should be all about.
My wedding dress was the most beautiful dress in the world to me. It was a white dress. I actually bought my wedding shoe's before I even had my wedding dress. It was lace high heels. I, however, did not think this through at all. When I started walking on these shoes I realized that on the day of the wedding my feet will be so sore that I won't be able to walk for a few days if I actually did wear these shoes the whole ceremony. So we went to buy me sneakers. I wore the high heels only for the chapel ceremony and then when we were busy signing the contract my mother helped me change my shoes. No one even noticed. My dress was something else to me. It was tight and perfect, but the one thing I did not do after or before buying my wedding dress was to walk in it for an hour or so. When the day came (wedding day) I felt like passing out. But in all fairness, I think it was the excitement and overwhelming feelings that made me overheat and light headed. My dress was tight at the top with the material slightly folding over the other material. This pattern went on until it reached my waist and then the dress just poofed. This was the dress that most complemented my body and made me feel like undescribable happy. I loved this dress. I felt like a real princess. My hair was a half updo with curls hanging down. My lips was a dark red and my eyes were covered with black eyeshadow and eyeliner. My soon to be husband at that time sent me a present to open when I was getting ready. He bought me a bracelet. A glittering bracelet. This really complimented my dress. Of course, I wore this on the day with my earrings and my necklace. The top thing regarding my outfit for the whole wedding was my dress and my sneakers. I loved my sneakers.
My bridesmaids wore navy blue dresses. I love the color blue as it brings out happiness in people according to me. The scheme of the wedding was navy blue. We decided that it would look absolutely stunning if they wore navy blue dresses and the groomsmen navy blue trousers and ties. We got the look from Pinterest and bought the dresses at China mall. They looked so beautiful. One thing about me is that when the people I love is happy, then I am happy. But on this day, they really looked gorgeous and the best of all was they were shining.
Our marriage officer was Ds. Gerhard. I know him since I was a little child.
Our photographer was something else. She is actually a close friend and part of the family. The photo's that she captured that day was so amazing, words don't even have to speak. You can feel all the emotions in all of the photos. I am so grateful for her as I don't think that I would have been so happy with anyone else. We did not have a photo booth because we got married late in the afternoon and because of this the schedule of the wedding was so tight that everything had to happen as soon as possible.
This is a very special part of me. We did not hire a wedding planner, because of finances, but my mother took the role of the wedding planner. So if it wasn't for this amazing lady, whom I am lucky enough to call my mother, our wedding wouldn't have happened. She worked so hard and planned everything right up until the end. On the day of the wedding, she was everywhere at once. She made everything work and happen as it was supposed to. Obviously, her biggest concern was that I am happy with everything.
Most girls hate it when their mothers interfere with their wedding decisions etc. I loved every second of it. This was where my mother and I got to spend the most time together. Conflict was not once part of the whole planning process. We enjoyed every second of it. Once again my mother is a superstar. Between her full-time job and managing a wedding, she did an amazing job.
I did not need wedding transport as the Suite where I was, was next to the chapel. The only thing that made it difficult was that I couldn't walk to the chapel as everyone would see me (including my husband). So we had to go around the chapel which entailed a gravel road. We used my mother's car to get me from point a to b.
The food for the wedding was so nice. The best wedding food that I have ever tasted (but of course I would say so) in my life. The cake was the center of attention. So my husband's grandmother made the cake. The cake was made up our of different flavors cupcakes and then on the top of the cake was a small cake for my husband and I. This little cake had a secret center filled with volcano chocolate sauce. The centerpieces of the cake were two R2D2's. This is from star wars. My husband is a huge fan of star wars and that is why we did this. His grandmother also made the R2d2's. This cake was the cake of the year.
We did all the stationery ourselves. My mother's sister did most of the print work. But between me, my mother and her sister we did everything our selves.
We actually didn't have money to take dance lessons. We would have loved to as everyone knows that we are not good in slow dancing. Both of us can dance but not together. This is a thing that we have struggled with since we started dating in 2011. We love dancing, freestyling, but not "sokkie".
Our DJ was really nice and gave us a lot of ideas for the wedding. The venue actually recommended him to us. We wanted a fog machine when we walked into the venue, but when push came to shove the fog machine did not work. We only hired him until 12:00, but he played a little bit extra for us and went on until 12:30. We danced until the last song. There where laser lights on the dance floor and everything was perfect.
