I would say the highlight of our wedding would be our first dance. I can dance a little bit, but my husband have two left feet. He was so stressed about the dance, I think that is the thing he stressed about the most, except for his speech of course. We worked out our dance according to a Youtube video, we exercised night after night and we got it perfect. Like they say Practice makes Perfect! I was also stressed that we miss a move or forget what to do, but it was just perfect and so romantic.
After our dance, it was the father-daughter dance, I picked the song "Daddy's Little Angel" by T Carter for this special dance. This would be one of the most memorable moments of our wedding, it is hard for a father to give away his daughter. This was very emotional as my father and I were both crying through the whole song.
We did go on honeymoon, we didn't see the need of spending thousands and thousands so we booked a very nice and quiet place in Shaka's Rock, near Durban. We saw this as a chance of doing everything one wouldn't normally do or pay to do, since some things are very expensive these days.
I would describe my wedding look as "Less is more", I am not one for a lot of bling and jazz, I like plain. My makeup was nice and natural, just the way I like it. I decided to braid my hair, I wanted to do something different, it feels if everyone is making an updo or just curls so I wanted something else. We put pearl hairpins in the braid just for the last touch and it looked stunning. My wedding dress... I wanted to give up at one stage, everyone wanted me to try on a dress with a lot of bling and I did, but I just couldn't find a dress that stands out. Until I saw a plain lace dress and I said this is my dress. My dress was made out of a soft white lace, with three-quarter sleeves and we made a little belt just for that something that short. I originally bought white lace pumps, I don't like heels at all. When I went to fit my dress, it was a little longer than it was supposed to be, so I went to look for shoes...again! I found a pair of those gel wedges and it was perfect, the perfect height and it is very comfortable. I am not a jewellery person, so I decided all I want is a pearl bracelet, it has to be pearls because I love pearls and small earrings. I found a pearl bracelet, it was pretty pricey, but hey one only get married once... My husband gave me small pearl earrings as a gift once and I didn't want to wear it because I was afraid I will lose one or they get stolen, so I decided this was the perfect event for this earrings and it matched with my dress and bracelet.
Me and my husband are from Ermelo, we were born here and grew up here and both our families are also here. So we decided to get married near Ermelo, it would be convenient for everyone. We decided on a game lodge about 15km out of Ermelo, on the Piet Retief Road, Indawo Game Lodge. It was n beautiful place, but unfortunetly the lodge burnt down 2 weeks after our wedding.
The lodge have accomodation available, there are plenty of rooms to choose from and some of our guests did stay over the night, but most of them drove back home since the venue wasn't so far.
Hmmm...I did try to excercise a bit, but winter and I aren't friends and I get cold really fast so it was a mission to get to the gym in the cold. I must say I am a very lucky person, I have a beautiful skin, I don't struggle with pimples so there was no need to go for a facial, etc. However, I have very brittle teeth, so I went to the dentist and they build my teeth up and made it nice and white for the special day. I also went to my hairdresser for highlights the week before the wedding, one must look at your best on your wedding day.
I did went for a back, neck and shoulder massage, which my sister paid for. She said she had a surprise for me and the day of the "surprise" she gave me a spa voucher for the massage, which really helped because I was so stressed.
Two words: Bright and colourful! The venue is already set up with white drapings and fairy lights so we decided on red table cloths, with a white table runner and turquoise overlay, we used silver underplates just to break the colour a bit. For the centrepieces we used a square-shaped mirror, with a fishbowl like vase on top of the mirror and a candle inside the vase. I love roses and I wanted roses as part of the flowers, so we used white and red roses, red gerbera's and white hyacinths. The flowers were arranged around the bottom of the vase, on top of the mirror, so they reflected on the mirror. I used white chair covers to cover the chairs and red chair bows to break the white a little. I wanted the bridal table to stand out a bit but it still has to be in context with the rest of the tables, it was quite plain, but for the backdrop we used fairy lights and tissue paper pom-poms. It looked very nice indeed.
My husband like bright colours, so we decided the men should wear red. My husband wore a black suit with a silver waistcoat and a red tie.I bought him Superman cufflinks because he is a huge Superman fan and the red fit in with our colour scheme. The groomsmen wore black pants and a black waistcoat, also with a red tie and plain red cufflinks. We hired my husband's suit and all the waistcoats at Wedding Bells in Witbank, Mpumalanga. We also bought the tie and cufflink sets at Wedding Bells.
Seeing that the men wore red, we thought it best if the ladies wear turqouise. My bridesmaids were my sisters and they don't like floor-length dresses, and since we got married in spring we decided on knee-length dresses. A friend told me to look on Facebook on Sticky Toffee Clothing and that woman can... She has the most beautiful dresses to choose from. I saw a photo of bridesmaids with dresses she made and I asked my sisters/bridesmaids what they think about it, and they loved it. So, I contacted her, we took measurements and I ordered the dresses. The ladies wore a turqouise lace dress, they decided on their own shoes and jewellery, except, a pearl bracelet that I gave to them all as a gift.
Pastor Ben Loots was our marriage officer. He was the pastor at the Volle Evangelie Church in Ermelo. He was the marriage officer at both my elder sister's weddings. We decided to ask him because I've known him for a long time and the message you get when he preach is just phenomenal. He gave a very nice speech at our wedding, and a lot of people said that he gave a beautiful message.
Angie de Jager from ADJ Photography was our photographer for the day. I decided on her, because her photos are very natural, she does edit some of the photos, but she doesn't go outrageous, you can still see it is you. We didn't had a photo booth, I didn't see the need of one because not everyone likes photos and we were at a wedding once where they had a photo booth and no one went to take photos.
I didn't have a wedding planner, but my sisters helped a lot and my husband as well, believe it or not. He was actually very helpful. My sisters did most of the decorating since they are the creative ones.
I didn't see the need of paying a lot of money for a wedding car, the chapel where we got married is a few metres away from where the reception venue is. My brother-in-law asked about 2 weeks before the wedding if we have a car, and I said no it's a waste. So he and my sister arranged a car for us, and my youngest sister made number plates for us. I were so glad about the car in the end, because we have the most beautiful photos at the car. I was surprised when the driver came to pick us up, it was a white Mercedes AMG. A dream car, it drives so so soft, you wouldn't say that you are sitting in a car.
Tannie Valerie, one of my parent's friends, asked if she can prepare the food as a wedding gift for us. Like they say "Never look a gift horse in the mouth", so we took her offer graciously. The food was genuinely very very tasty, and that is the most important thing of a wedding...THE FOOD!
I wanted a wedding cake, but not a normal plain white wedding cake. I found a picture of a wedding cake with a little bit of red and a little bit of turquoise and I said " This is what I want". I asked Suzanne Geel to make the wedding cake, she makes the most gorgeous cupcakes and cakes and she is really affordable. Besides that the cake was exactly like the picture, almost too beautiful too eat, it was very delicious and soft as a sponge, literally.
You've probably already noticed, I wanted everything different than the usual wedding. We had an idea of an printed invitation but I didn't like the idea very much, I saw a picture of an invitation printed on a chocolate and I loved it. At first my husband didn't like the idea but in the end we both agreed, it worked out cheaper than the printed invitation and the guests get a chocolate to eat...BONUS! I ordered KitKat invitations from Glinster Glans, she made a wrapper with our colour scheme, which was turqouise and red, with the invitation wording on the wrapper. I must say that I was sceptic about how she will do it, but the invitations look gorgeous.
The rest of the stationery I did self. You throw the Menu's and so on away after the wedding, so I said I am not going to spend thousands on that. I designed and printed the Menu's self, as well as the Table Seating Chart and it came out quiet nice, I have to say.
We did take dance lessons, with Youtube. I am not kidding, we learned our dance by doing dance tutorials that is on Youtube. I don't think I ever laughed so much, but in the end it payed of. Our dance was outstanding!
We asked one of my husband's friends for a quote, he is a DJ. He gave us a huge discount on his normal price, so we couldn't refuse the offer. There was not a lot of dancing, not everyone likes dancing, and most of our guests were a little older, but the young people took the dance floor on horns.
