Everything about our day was a highlight!
From tracktor rides to and from the forest chapel to the intimate moments shared with my husband, there was nothing about our day that wasn't completely magical! Even now after the wedding, I sit back and reminisce about our day.
The amount of love and joy shared in one day blew me away. I felt like an absolute princess, I laughed all day and all night and seeing the way my husband watched and looked at me while walking down the isle to him will forever be a moment I treasure.
Yes we did! We were blessed to be able to have two! We went to Cheetah Ridge for our minimoon straight after the wedding, which is in the Nambiti private game reserve. We were there for 2 nights. Although it was short, we had such a special time and were lucky enough to see some great sightings!
A huge thank you to everyone at Cheetah Ridge for making our stay so amazing!
We will be going to adaaran select hudhuranfushi resort in Maldives in September for our main honeymoon.
Like most of us bride to be's we spend alot of time on Pinterest, creating board after board after board! Well thats what I did for a good couple of months before I found colour scheme I wanted for the wedding.
I knew I wanted a wedding that was original to me and that had different elements to it, branching away from the "norm". I also knew I wanted to have a country wedding and to have the ceremony in the forest. I was blessed in the sense that my husband was very laid back when it came to me planning the wedding and decor side of things, so i was able to take full rein with this - which was wonderful (as I am a slight control freak)
The wedding ceremony was in the most magical forest (a fairytale setting). We went for a county style wedding that was more dramatic than your normal country weddings. My bridesmaid bouquets were not your normal bouquets, they were glass geo shapes filled with flowers with flowers cascading out of the open side of geo shape. My bouquet was dramatic yet whimsical. The bridesmaids and moms had beautiful floral clips and I used flowers as my garter (almost like a flower crown but was tied around my leg) Flowers and Decor was done by the phenomenal Planned to Perfection.
Hair and make up look was very natural. It helps when you have beautiful bridemaids and moms! Hair was done by Nicci Murray from Dbn hair Co and make up was done by Tayla Nixon James from TNJ's Make up.
My absolutely GORGEOUS dress is from De La Vida Bridal Couture by Rosa Clara.
My shoes were boots! Yup, thats right Boots!! Because I am no heels type of gal and to have a country wedding one must embrace the country style! (If my riding boots were as pretty I probably would have worn those). My boots are from Cotton On.
I received Lingerie as a gift from my wonderful collegues and those were from Sissy Boy.
Accessories; my best friend lent me her beautiful diamond bracelet that she wore at her wedding, my earlings were moonstone studs and a gift from my two very special work collegues and my beautiful rings from Browns.
This Venue!!!! We got married at Bellwood Cottages and Wedding Venue in Nottingham road. Majority of our guests stayed at the venue as it can sleep 72 people in 5 cottages that is set in a tranquil setting over looking the dam. This venue is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful! And a definite must see for those that love the country style weddings. There is a forest chapel which is something out of a fairytale!
The other guests were given accommodation recommendations that was in close proximity to the venue.
I didn't really have a specific beauty regime leading up to the wedding.
The major thing I did was just be more mindful of what I ate. Like most ladies, I love to eat and am a sucker for snacking, so I just had to remind myself that i couldn't eat everything! Other than that I continued to do my normal day to day things leading up to the wedding, such as going to work, riding my horse, getting into the gym and coming home to my man and our 4 pooches.
I recieved a spa voucher for Camelot Spa when I purchased my dress from De La Vida, so I used that 2 weeks before the wedding when I went to JHB to do my fittings and collect my dress.
I got a spray tan 2 days before the wedding and of course got my nails done. Both of these were done at Lunula Nail Bar.
Can i just say that my decor and flowers were out of this world!!! My whole vision was completely brought to life and transformed to this magical setting that I didnt want to leave! Decor and FLowers done by Sarah at Planned to Perfect
Our guests had canapes outside the reception hall on the lawn. They had hay bays to sit on and umbrellers to sit underneath. It was a very relaxed setting. After that the guests made their way into the reception hall.
Our colours inside the reception hall included Ash rose, blush pink, deep red rose and greanery with touches of gold, navy and black. Our tables and chairs were wooden. Im not going to be able to describe the beauty of the decor, so i would recommend heading to my gallary to have a look at the pictures to see just how magnificent it truly was.
My older sister let me use her draping from her wedding in May this year that we draped on the ceiling and a very good friend of mine let me use her fairylights.
The groomsmen wore white shirts and black blazer which was hired from Suit Up, black chino pants from Woolworths, brown belt, black floral bow-ties from MyBro Tie and veldskoen from Veldskoen SA.
The groom wore white shirt and off white blazer which was made by Smock and Stitch, black chino pants from Woolworths, black belt, white floral tie from HIS Apparel and veldskoen from Old Khaki.
The grooms ring was from Cherry Design Jewellery.
My Bridesmaids wore jumpsuits. The idea actually came from my best friend (who was a bridesmaid) I loved the idea of the girls wearing jumpsuits as I was looking at ways to change things up a bit.
The jumpsuits were made by Rachel Harding From Harding Designs and Brit Bom from BRIT Bom.
The marraige officer who legally married us was Frank Booysen and the Pastor who did our ceremony was Barry Van Heerden. Barry married my mom and dad as well as my gran for her second marrage, so we thought it was fitting to have him do ours. Both Frank and Barry as well as Barry's wife Wendith are wonderful people who we have built a lovely relationship with.
We went and did marraige 'counselling' with Barry and his wife Wendith which we thoroughly enjoyed.
Lauren from Lauren Setterberg Photography and Hylton from Wavecrest Pictures (Vanilla Photography) captured our day in the best way possible!
We couldn't have asked for any better and im sure by having a look at our photo's you will agree! We haven't seen our video just yet but i know we will not be dissappointed.
Lauren is a fun, bubbly, patient, bun (bunny) loving individual who is obsessed with amazing natural light. I mean, how can you blame her, have you seen our photo's!!! Besides the fact that my best friend, Laura, used Lauren at her wedding and I loved the way she worked, the main reason I chose La to do our photo's was because she is a light goddesss and knows just how to work her magic when it comes to light. Since my best friends wedding I followed La on social media and I was never dissappointed by her photos each time she uploaded one.
Hylton is calm, quiet gentleman, who actually has quite the sense of humour. My best friend, Laura, also used Hylton for her wedding and thats when I first met Hylton and got to see him at work. His calm demeanor is what drew me to using him and the fact that you didnt even know he was there yet captured EVERYTHING so beautifully!! Although Lauren and Hylton are not from the same company, I would definitely say that they compliment each other and work extremely well together. (Hylton also uses the light so beautifully) From video's that i've watched of Hylton's and comparing them to other videographers, i most certainly love the way Hylton uses the natuaral light and captures the raw moments of the wedding day.
Thank you again so much to these two talented individuals! I couldnt have imagined my wedding day without you!
Although I did all the planning leading up to the wedding I did make use of a wedding coordinator to coordinate our day - Which I am so thankful and grateful that I did!
I used Olivia from the Wedding Company South African. Olivia did the most amazing job and our guests were very impressed by how smoothly our day ran. She remaind on top of everything and was continiously reminding my OCD self that I had nothing to worry about. Thank you Olivia!!
Laura Cole from Chef 'n Thyme prepared our food. Not only was Laura such a pleasure to work with but her food!!!! My word was the food absolutely beautiful!! Our guests couldnt stop talking about the food and we actually had a couple guests asking if there was more. Now if that does'nt tell you that the food was good, then nothing will!
Roxi maclou (used to be Wardman) who was on SA Masterchef made our gorgeous cake!! If you think the outside is beautiful, the real gem was the inside! Each tier was a different flavour;
Bottom tier – Chocolate cake filled with salted caramel, salted peanut ganache and topped with chocolate frosting.
Middle tier – Red velvet cake filled with white chocolate ganache and topped with Nutella frosting.
Top tier – Earl grey cake filled with pineapple curd and topped with cream cheese frosting.
Normally at weddings you have so much cake left over, well not at our wedding!!
If you are in the KZN area and looking for a caterer as well as someone to make your cake, I strongly recommend that you use Chef 'n Thyme and SA Masterchef Roxi!!
I used Emmerentia from Oh Yay!
When I ask my husband (fiance at the time) what he had thought of the stationery design that I had chose for our wedding, he looked at me with a rather blank face and said "What is wedding stationery"... LOL! I knew at that point that I was pretty much alone in this aspect of the wedding planning and continued to get advice from my ladies.
As im sure you are aware, there is alot of time and effort that goes into designin wedding stationery, Emmerentia was so incredibly patient with me during the desgin process of back and forth emails, and such a dream to work with!
Our reception was just Perfect!! Not only was the decor out of this world, everything went to smoothly (thanks to Olivia and our two MC's)
Yes we did take dance lessons. We had 3 lessons before the wedding and im so glad that we did. Everyone was pretty impressed by our first dance (and I must say - So were we) We had dance lessons by a lady called Margie Dufourq.
We also had a DJ, his name was Matt and is from Executive DJ's. Matt was amazing! From walking down the isle to the venue closing at 12am, not once did Matt mess up pur music or play any of the wrong songs. He was realiable, friendly and definitely did a awesome job of keeping our guests on the dancefloor! All the songs that the guests had requested were also played.
Planned to Perfection is a KwaZulu Natal-based wedding planning, decor hire and a floral styling company.
