There was too many highlights and memorable moments on our wedding day. We were so stressed before the day as to how the day would run according to our timesheet and expectations. Honestly, we stressed for nothing as everything was just perfect and it all went exactly how we wanted it to.
Getting ready with my bridal crew was special and we had so much fun and memorable moments with each other. It all got emotional for me when my dad came to fetch me in the dressing room and seeing me for the first time, this has to be a highlight in any bride's special day and I will cherish that moment forever.
Being able to have all our loved ones and close friends together for one day was so special and doesn't happen often. So many family members travelled from far to spend the day with us and for us that was so special.
My biggest highlight of the day was when my husband and I were taking our couple pictures. We got to go away for a bit and it was just us (and our photographers). This gave us time to relax and enjoy the moment with each other. Although we were taking pictures we felt so comfortable to be ourselves and share those intimate moments together.
The rest of the evening during our reception was amazing and we had so much fun dancing the night away with our guests. Of course it was a Greek Wedding so breaking plates was a hit with our guests.
Our day was so special for us and we are still talking about.
My husband and I unfortunately have not gone on honeymoon yet. This year has been a busy year of planning and getting everything perfect for our wedding day. As most weddings go they do cost quite a bit, and sadly a honeymoon was never in that budget.
Our families and friends were so incredibly kind and generous to give us some money as our wedding gift. So we have put that towards our "Honeymoon Savings Fund"!
My wedding dress was the second dress I tried on at Bride & Co. I knew it was the one the moment I tried it on. Although my bridesmaids convinced me to try more. Nothing compared to my one. I tried it on one last time and it was the one, along with some sobbing. My dress was a off white mermaid cut dress, with a high neckline and open back. It wasn't over the top but classy, with embroidery and beading detailing the top of the dress. It was perfect and super comfortable for the day.
My shoes I bought on a day out shopping with my bridesmaids at the Oriental Plaza. They have well known brands for the fraction of the price and I found the most beautiful pair of silver shoes to go with my dress. My accessories were items I had already that my husband bought my some years back. These went well in the tradition of something old. My grandmother made me my garter. As my dress already had cups in them I only needed panties for under the dress. I went with seamless underwear and kept the pretty lingerie for the honeymoon suite.
Chantelle from Artistry Hair Design did my hair on my wedding day as well as my mom and bridesmaids. She is so good at what she does. I had a hair trail prior to the big day and she knew exactly what I wanted from all the ideas I bounced off her, and a few dozen pictures. She creates a loose pull through plait incorporating my clip in extensions I got for the day as well as a hair vine which she wrapped in-between the plait. I loved the end result and it lasted me right until the end of the evening.
In the beginning of planning I knew I wanted Make up By Ryno to do my make up on the day. His work just blows me away. I booked him at a bridal expo for myself, bridesmaids and mom well in advance and did my trail before my wedding. Usually they say to do the trail prior to booking someone but he gets booked up fast and I knew he would be perfect for my day. He went with a float look and brown tones on the eyes. I didn't want anything striking but he made me feel so beautiful and natural.
Oakfield Farm in Muldersdrift was our wedding venue of choice. We stumbled upon them whilst looking at other venues and booked a spontaneous viewing. We fell in love with their venue. They have three different wedding venues on their farm to choose from based on the size of your wedding. We went with the Diary venue. Which was secluded from the other venues and so beautiful.
Oakfield Farm has a guesthouse which you have an option of booking for your guests. Sleeping 10-12 guests. We booked this for some of our relatives to stay over the night. We then had a lovely breakfast with them the following morning before checking out.
Our venue also gave us a list of other places our guests could check in for the night of the wedding in the area. So we were able to give this option to our guests who wish to stay near by and not drive home. As Muldersdrift is a distance for some people to return home.
This acclaimed, multi award winning venue is where romance, beauty, old fashioned hospitality and excellence come together a mere 30 minutes from Sandton and Centurion.
Leading up to my wedding I was adamant about being more consistent in the gym and eating healthy. Although a few minor slip ups from stress and getting the flu through a twist into this plan. I wasn't able to gym as crazy as I had hoped but I tried non the less.
6 months prior to the wedding I changed up my skin routine and started getting regular peels to smooth out my skin and help with the odd breakout. This really helped with my skin on the day and my skin was glowing! I also found by doing dermaplaning 1 week prior to my wedding really helped with how beautiful my make up looked on my face. That and my incredible make up artist.
My husband and I always wanted to do teeth whitening and now we had a good excuse to do it We were so lucky to have his aunt help us out with this as she is a dentist. So we had sparkly teeth on the day and after!
Two weeks before my wedding my mother and I went on a spa day to get all pampered and relaxed after a long year of planning. We did massages, facials and nails. Three days prior to the big day I took my bridesmaids with me to do our nails at Crema Nail & Beauty Lounge. This salon is so aesthetically beautiful it's an amazing spot for bridal pamper days. We also got free champagne!
We used the onsite florist at Oakfield Farm. Erna from Magnifique Floral Art was just amazing. She knew exactly what I wanted from the beginning and was so helpful during the entire process. She did a mock up for me months before my wedding to make sure it's exactly what I wanted. She did all the flowers in the chapel as well as reception. Including some decor. The colours were blush and Burgandy. She made beautiful flower runners for the tables which included an array of different sizes roses in the colour scheme as well as a touch of gold painted flowers. This didn't look tacky either it really brought the colours together. As the underplates were gold.
I hired my rustic wooden tables from another decor company and they delivered and set them up the day prior.
I had blush pink tulle table runners on each table to add some softness to the raw wooden look. These were hired by Bloom and Decor.
The rest of the furniture and decor was provided by the venue. We brought in a few items of our own to personalize some elements. All our wedding favours were made up ourselves.
The venue had beautiful white draping in the wooden framed roof as well as fairy lights to add some ambience. The rest of the lighting was provided by our DJ at Starry Night.
My husband wore a tailored Tux which he found at Euro Suit. I was convinced he would wear a navy blue suit as it was trending and I thought it would look good on the day with my dress. However, he chose a black tux, wearing a white under shirt, waistcoat and cravat. Honestly I am so glad he went with this. He looked so handsome and the tailors did an amazing job. He found his tux three months before the wedding. It was tailored two weeks before and he had his last fitting three days prior then collected day before. This made me nervous but they were so professional.
The groomsman were all told to wear black suit pants which we chose and a white suit shirt. All of this was sourced from Woolworths . They all then wore their choice of smart black shoes and belts. They all matched well and looked great next to the bridesmaids.
I knew from the get go I wanted the girls dresses to be made from scratch. The reason for this was each of them were different height and sizes. I knew they wouldn't all suit a one dress style if we were to walk into YDE for example.
We found Anysha from Nicha Clothing. She was so amazing and affordable. She tailor made each girls dress to suit them and fit their body shape. Each girl had the same colour Burgandy (almost wine red though) and had a different style at the upper boddess of the dress. They dresses looked stunning on the day and fitted in with the colour scheme. They then each chose heels that they were most comfortable in, in silver. All accessories were silver too.
As we had a Greek Wedding, we chose our priest from our church in Germiston to conduct our ceremony.
Pater Gerassimos was our priests name from St John's Greek Orthodox Church Germiston.
When deciding who to capture our special day we did a lot of research. It may seem like an underated part of the day but honestly I think it's the most important part!
We interviewed a few photographers but no one came close to how comfortable we felt with the Silber Studio team. They are young and vibrant and they felt like friends from the beginning. They suited the style of imagery we wanted. We did a engagement shoot with them months before the big day and this validated our decision. We also made use of the videographer they have on their team. Honestly their team is just incredible and blew us away with the final images and video. It gave us goosebumps looking back at the day!
We also had a photobooth on the day of our wedding for our guests to make use of during the canapes in the garden. This kept our guests entertained and busy whilst we were off doing our couples shoot. Each guest could take as many pictures as they like. Guest could then place one copy in our guest book and leave us a little note.
We didn't have a wedding planner for our wedding. We planned to do it all ourselves. This wasn't overwhelming as our wedding venue was so helpful with the entire process, a planner was never nesassary for us as we knew what we wanted. Two weeks prior to the day I was assigned a co ordinator. She made sure everything ran smoothly before and on the day!
This acclaimed, multi award winning venue is where romance, beauty, old fashioned hospitality and excellence come together a mere 30 minutes from Sandton and Centurion.
We didn't have any wedding transport for the day. I arrived in the morning with my bridal crew and mom to get ready and my husband drove himself to the venue with his groomsman.
We made use of the horse and carriage that Oakfield Farm offered on the day for pictures after the ceremony.
All our guests sorted their own transportation to the venue and after reception in the evening. Most people used Uber as it's available within the area.
The excellent staff and Chef at Oakfield Farm prepared the food for our wedding day.
We went for a seated menu and were able to build our menu from scratch based on some of the items we got to try at our tasting. Oakfield Farm throw an incredible evening to taste the Chef's Menu for all Bride's and Grooms who have booked their wedding with them. The night was packed with entertainment and we were able to try all the incredible food on the Chef's Menu. This helped us with deciding what we wanted to serve our guests. The Chef was incredibly accomodating our choices and even sourcing in items he does not usually serve. We loved that we had "free" reign on our menu decision.
We initially didn't want a wedding cake as we were going to have quite a big dessert/ sweets table for our guests. We didn't feel the need to overdo it. However, three weeks before our wedding we decided to go ahead and do it to be traditional. We contacted Cupcake Boutique in Lonehill as we have used them before for birthdays. Their cupcakes are honestly the best! Within one appointment we got to choose what we wanted and try the options. We went with a cupcake tower with a small tiered cake on top. It was very basic but it was a bit with the guests!
When it came to my stationary I wasn't all that fussy as to how I wanted it to look. I knew I wanted it to fit into my colour schemes. My amazing aunt printed and designed my beautiful menus as well as my seating cards. My seating cards had the same design and colours as my wedding invitations.
All my other stationary such as wedding my welcome sign was printed by the amazing team at Lua Nova Studio. They do just about anything for weddings and you can customize your pieces too. Their service and quality of the wedding signs were excellent!
Our aim is to offer the fastest service with exceptional quality, at unbelievable prices!
Our reception was next to our chapel at Oakfield Farm. So no need for guests to travel to another venue. The venue was perfect for the amount of guests we had and the tables were perfectly placed so everyone could see us at the main table. The onsite florist did an amazing job at capturing exactly how I wanted the venue decorated. The venue had a beautiful soft ambience to it especially in the evening with the candles and fairy lights.
We didn't do dance lessons for our first dance. We did research on it and found that it's very overstated and guests don't usually remember every detail of it. We did practice dancing to our song and got a few cool moves from YouTube which helped make the dance look put together. Thankfully my husband and I are not completely terrible when it came to dancing and know a thing or two. Our guests thought we got a dancing teacher to teach us. So the lessons were not nesassary for us we impressed them anyway and had fun doing it.
Starry Night did all our music and sound for our wedding night. We gave them a list of songs we absolutely wanted to be played such as the song I walked down isle too, entrance song, first dance etc. As well as songs to play throughout the night. They were super professional and kept the party going. As well as them providing the music they provided the mic systems, speakers, recording of speeches, music in the church and garden, dry ice machine for first dance and the lighting.
Our aim is to offer the fastest service with exceptional quality, at unbelievable prices!
This acclaimed, multi award winning venue is where romance, beauty, old fashioned hospitality and excellence come together a mere 30 minutes from Sandton and Centurion.
