The amount of highlights that are experienced by a bride is something incomprehensible, the sheer excitement and endless butterflies that create the suspenseful buildup just add to the magic of the day. Regardless, a few outstanding moments I experienced during my wedding was that moment where I could hear my heart pounding before they opened the set of floating doors, the overwhelming sense of bliss of walking down the aisle to my husband and seeing the tears streaming down his face. That was my unsurpassed highlight of my day. Small things that stood out were, our pastor had such a sense of humor which completely broke the ice and created such a comfortable environment for my family, friends and I to enjoy. Did I also mention, our tequila tree? Hanging shots of tequila out of a thorn tree and champagne ice-lollies were just the tip of the iceberg during our African bush wedding.
We went to Mauritius for our honeymoon. One full week of pure relaxation and utter bliss after a demanding wedding season. We stayed in a picturesque hotel called Le Mauricia in the Northern part of the island, ringed with palm trees and white sandy beaches. We made a conscious effort to balance relaxing on the beach sipping cocktails and exploring the island as much as we could. We started by hiring underwater scooters, yes underwater! How cool is that! We snorkeled, wake boarded, paddle boarded and did so much more. We rented a (land) scooter and explored all around the island, stopping off at gorgeous spots to just appreciate the tropical paradise. Darryn (my husband) surprised me with a pink Moke (almost like a Jeep) and we drove down the Southern side of the island to do what I love most, trying out local food from resident restaurants and street vendors. We tried the most fascinating dishes such as Gato Piment, Baja, Channa Puri and Dhall Pouri (my personal favorite!). Our honeymoon was the picture-perfect opportunity to reflect on how blessed Darryn and I truly are.
The idea behind my wedding attire was “timeless”, my overall goal was not to follow fashion trends but rather something that I personally loved and knew that I can look back in 30 years and still think the look that I went for, remained timeless. After a few of my images were posted a comment that I received was “a modern-day Marilyn Monroe”, WHAT AN HONOUR! My makeup artist has such a raw talent for what he does that I left my makeup entirely up to him. He did his thing and the results were perfect, a bold look with a winged eye made for my vintage-chic look. As for my hair, I opted for loose curls pulled to the side for the simple reason that I prefer my hair down. My shoes were one of my favorite parts of my entire look, if you could imagine Cinderella’s shoes, these were them. The best part, they were blue with the most gorgeous embellishments on the front of the shoe. The process of designing my shoes was so much fun and I would highly recommend using Elli-Nicole shoes for any bride planning her special day. Because my dress had so much detail at the top, I opted for “less is more” with my jewelry, a modest pair of dangling earring that a friend of mine purchased for me from Lovisa. My something borrowed was a ring of my mothers, it was beautiful and fitted with my theme entirely. A pear-shaped garnet set in gold. Need I say more?
Darryn and I opted for a bush wedding 30 km from the Botswana border on a game farm called Bordeaux. The crēm de la crēm of bush wedding venues. Because our venue is so far from where we and majority of our guests stay, accommodation was a must. We took upon the daunting task of booking all 152 guests at the various lodges to ensure that families and friendship groups could lodge together. It was a tremendous effort but well worth it!
Every Wedding Package is unique to the client and the staff at Bordeaux Game Farm will assist you in planning the perfect ceremony and reception. Our venue can accommodate up to 2
I generally follow a strict beauty regime regardless but I knew for my wedding I had to step it up a notch. I teamed up with my beautician who had a lot of great tips to make my skin look flawless on my wedding day. I opted to increase my facial treatments to every second week for about 10 weeks before my wedding, this in my opinion helped to make my skin glow on my special day. My dress was pretty slim fitting so I knew it was time to shape up, but I do not enjoy exercise and I certainly cannot stick to a diet. But somehow I managed to do both for about 4 months before my wedding (myself and everyone around me were so shocked). I trained with a personal trainer twice a week and really kept my carbohydrate and sugar intake to a bare minimum.
My décor I kept to a bare minimum and rather went all out on flowers. We used a lot (and I mean a lot, a 2.5 ton truck filled to be exact) of penny gums for the base of all our florals including our hanging structures, this also made the venue smell like heaven. Our base colour for our florals was burgundy but that didn’t stop us from incorporating hues of pink, purple, yellow and even a touch a blue. We decided to incorporate a lot of fruit into florals such as kiwi, pear, pomegranate, blood oranges and plums. Everyone’s reaction to this was that people were going to eat our bouquets, we said GREAT!!!! At least our florals were put to good use instead of only being thrown away. Simplistic crystal candle holders of different sizes were used to hold gold candles which made for a truly rich atmosphere.
Darryn (the groom) wore a two coloured suite that we found at Khaliques, it was perfect, like James Dean perfect. He looked so dapper! The groomsmen wore plain black suits but all had matching burgundy ties. As a gift to all the groomsmen, we purchased burgundy polo socks for them which was the touch of fun without going overboard with funny patterns. A really special part of Darryn’s suit was his cufflinks. Since we started dating (2010) our nickname for each other is “mouse”, so I knew I needed to find him a little mouse cufflinks, this didn’t exactly come to plan….and many suppliers thought this was a strange request, I had to make them! I purchased two mice pendants off of Etsy and plain cufflinks to make my final product. They were the picture-perfect touch to our fairytale wedding.
I found the most perfect outfit for my bridesmaids at YDE, a nude off the shoulder top with a black floral skirt, I feel in love with it only to find out it was at the end of the range and would not be made anymore. I tried my best to source the different pieces for my bridesmaids from all over the country but was unsuccessful…..but luckily we found Gelique in Pretoria that was able to bring this image to life and recreated the look that I loved so much. Gelique was such an amazing experience that I got to share with my best friends.
Every Wedding Package is unique to the client and the staff at Bordeaux Game Farm will assist you in planning the perfect ceremony and reception. Our venue can accommodate up to 2
