Daniel and I met about 12 years ago at a youth camp and became very good friends. He lived in jhb and I lived in durban. We were really good friends for many years until 1 year we went away with a bunch of friends for a few days and things just seem to click for us. We started officially dating about a week later. We had a long distance relationship for about 2 years which was tough but we pushed through because we knew that we were meant to be together. In the January of 2016 I moved to jhb to be closer to him and our relationship just blossomed. In February this year he got Down on one knee and asked me to marry him. 5 short, exciting, fun, hectic, busy months later here we are a happily married couple excited for our future together.
So one day Dan surprised me with a weekend away with his folks. That Friday we packed and off we went to Crystal Springs for an "unplanned" chilled weekend away. The Saturday morning arrived and we took the day slow. Eventually Dan and I decided to go on a hike and have a picnic lunch. We started our hike which was meant to be around a 3 hour hike. We walked along the road looking for the correct hike that we had chosen on the map which we couldn't find. A couple hours later and about 8km hiked we still could not find the correct path to go on so we decided to go down some other random path and find a nice spot to set up for lunch. We literally stopped half way down a mountain in the middle of a pathway under a tree that was half in the path and decided to have lunch here as we were both starving and had been walking for what seemed like forever. We sat for a few minutes and had some water and then Dan said should we get out the food. He turned to the bag and dug deep into it looking for something in the bottom. The next thing he was on one knee and the rest is history.
Our wedding was awesome. We had the most fun ever. The people the food the music the traditions the dancing everything was just amazing. Everything went just as we planned and turned out to be even better than we had ever hoped and dreamed. We had some really awesome and different things at our wedding. From the swing with flower wreaths to the Confetti wands to the choreographed first dance and flash mob.
Yes we went on the most amazing honeymoon. We stayed at our wedding venue the Saturday night and the Sunday night he surprised me with a night at the D'Oreale Grande Hotel at Emporers Palace as I knew we were only leaving the monday for honeymoon. (I still thought we were going home for Sunday night) It was all a surprise to me until the very last second that he could keep the secret. Literally until he told the man at the check in.. "we would like to check in to our flight to MAURITIUS " a mini freak out in the airport later. We were jet setting off to the most beautiful island.
I went very cinderella for my look. Big ball gown classic hair and makeup. Our wedding was very traditional and modern but with a twist.
We got married at Providence County Wedding Venue in Nottingham Road Natal Midlands. The most beautiful setting for a fairy tale wedding. It was almost like a weekend wedding as most of our guests stayed over and made a weekend out of it. They stayed all down Nottingham road in the amazing accommodation they have scattered all around.
Our wedding party and family all got together after our rehearsal on the Friday night for dinner and we just chilled by the fire and watched rugby and chatted for hours.
So my biggest thing I think was that I planned to have finished all the wedding plans a whole month before the wedding so I could take that last month to gather myself and prepare for this amazing event that I've dreamt of my entire life. It worked out so well. I was privileged to have been sent to the Body Lab in bedfordview by an amazing family. They sent me for about 3 weeks which helped me loose some weight and tone up before my big day. I as normal brides do went on diet. More like stayed on diet. And that helped too. The week before the wedding I went down to durban and pretty much spoilt myself the whole week. I went for a massage and had my hair done and nails done and feet done had a tan done and etc.it was so nice to just relax that week.
So my mom ND I did and made most of the decor ourselves. Being a teacher I love doing that kind of creative thing. We obviously got our flowers from a florist (Sue Baxter) she did a stunning job. She took all my ideas for flowers and created them and they turned out to be stunning. The center piece of our tables were big boxes that we made and she filled them with gorgeous roses. We also hired table runners and Charger plates and a few other things that we needed. My dad made us a gorgeous swing for photos(always dreamt of having a swing) and we did other random little decor things like Confetti cones instead of baskets and quotes all over the place from our relationship etc.
Daniel and his boys wore grey suits that they hired and they had coral bow ties to match the bridesmaids. Dan wore a grey tie with a white shirt.( he looked so handsome) (he always does though hehe)
So I always wanted my bridesmaids to wear coral dresses. I wasn't so fussed with the style I just wanted them to all be comfy. So after It was almost impossible to find an already made coral dress for them in the budget I eventually decided to buy the dresses online and have them shipped to South Africa hoping and praying the dressmaker had the right coral colour I wanted. The dresses arrived and my mom and sister in law opened the box to pink dresses (almost freaking out a little) they realised they had been packaged inside out and once turned the right way round they were the most beautiful coral colour and the style with one shoulder shifon dress was beautiful on all my girls.
We were very blessed to have my uncle Brian Lister to marry us.
My photographer (Tanya Jacobs) was absolutely incredible. She was so relaxed and made everyone she was shooting feel like they were having so much fun and made us feel so comfortable in front of the camera. I had a sneak peak of some of the pictures on her camera during the night and was already blown away. I'm so looking forward to receiving all of them and seeing what a stunning job she did.
So I pretty much did all that. I was lucky enough to have Fern and Kevin from Providence Country Venue by my side every step of the way guiding and coordinating everything behind the scenes on the day. They made everything run so smoothly and made me feel at ease.
Well we were staying at the venue so we didn't really need transport. However, my dress did weigh a ton and was quite huge so my uncle drove me the 200m in his high rise BMW so I didn't have to carry the dress all that way in heels.
Fern and her team made all the food and the amazing cake (SO delicious)
We were very blessed to have our friends Hla and Emmanuel design all our wedding invites, programmes, menus, Seatting arrangements, thank yous and many more. We were also privileged enough to have another friend James from living word printers who did all of our printing for us.
So the party was awesome. We had a great DJ Grant Boonzaier he did a fantastic job and was always aware of what was going on and was in constant contact with the photographer for photo opportunities etc.
Dan and I were given dance lessons as a gift for my birthday and we had our first dance choreographed and then my cousin choreographed a flash mob for us which was mashed into the end of our first dance so our bridal party joined in for the flash mob. It was lots of fun and set the mood for the rest of the night
