We treated our wedding day as a wedding weekend the day before our wedding we had a sunset shoot and the skies saturated into a candyfloss colour scheme and it felt like the universes way of giving us its blessing.
Of course every bride wants their day to go off without a hitch but in truth I think the little hiccups are what makes the day special, especially if you are an untouchable kind of content. While walking down the aisle my veil flew off my head, it didn’t really register on me because I couldn’t take my eyes off my husband or bring myself to be removed from the peace I felt that surrounded us. I laughed it off put it away and got on with marrying my dream man.
We decided to have a Rasta type band at our cocktail hour and started our party a little early. We danced together, had pina coladas on the lawn and shared in the euphoria as the sun set before we went to take pictures.
Of course the highlight of my wedding was getting to marry my absolute crush after 13 years of dreaming and wishing. Nothing can compare the the love an contentment the surrounded us as we projected our love towards each other, the feeling was tangible! I can still see the sparkle in my husbands eyes.
Yes. We travelled along the garden route. COVID made travelling abroad impossible so we decided to take an international honeymoon in December but surprise, surprise we had a baby instead!
We started out our first night at our wedding venue, Brenton Haven knysna, then off to Dunes Resort in Keurboomstand, then off to African Perfection in Jeffrey’s bay, we stayed with family in St Francis bay where we celebrated St Pattys day and fulfilled a lifelong dream by gifting ourselves a piece of land at the beach we vacation at every year. We then moved on to Misty Mountain Nature Reserve in Tsitsikamma and enjoyed a cabin and a clearing overlooking the ocean where the owners dogs ran free (our favourite!), we did adventure activities like hiking and quad biking there. We ended off our honeymoon at another cabin destination in Tsitsikamma, The Fernery, surrounded by the beautiful forest, overlooking a cliff. We would take long baths in an indoor- outdoor tub while drinking wine. We visited the beautiful Fynboshoek Cheese farm, a small, hidden cheese sanctuary in the forest, the owner is an award winning chef who prepares a limited menu and his ridgebacks come to sample the food too.
Being a fashion designer I know now more than every that a minimalist bride is trendy. My thoughts on minimalism is that it’s timeless and you will look back in years to come and still love your look. Totally minimalist isn’t me though and it was important to showcase who I am in my dress, having lost 20kgs and feeling my absolute most sexy I wanted to show off my body with a figure hugging dress with waist cutouts and appliquéd lace on the cutouts. I chose a really extravagant symmetrical lace veil which I would use only for my reception. I made my veil and bought my dress, I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with work leading up to my wedding.
For my hair I chose an up do with a side part that I took down after the ceremony. I accessorised this hairstyle with a clip from my mom which was up cycled.
I’m not a fan of barely there makeup I feel like if you’re going to pay for makeup you really want it to look like it’s there and you’re photo ready.
Brenton Haven in Knysna. My guests stayed over at the venue.
Brenton Haven has a restaurant called Butterfly Blu for receptions and you can get married on the beach below.
I religiously used my Lumispa from NuSkin as a cleanser, it helped my skin stay smooth and makes for a great base for foundation.
I exercised religiously for about 3 months leading up to my wedding. I did Zumba for an hour twice a week and barre for 30 minutes 3 times a week.
For my hair I got a total makeover, I got a caramel and chocolate balayage, a minimal cut and a treatment.
I got the following treatments before my wedding
Pedicure and sunbed - The Colosseum health and hydro
Lashes- Sentient beings
Nails- Elostrated nails
Hair- Daniella Gomes
Wax and brows- Michelle at The Framery
We were inspired by a beach wedding done by the planner “Gideon Hermosa”
We definitely couldn’t have such an extravagant design because of budget limitations but we had an amazing planner and friend, Cheska, from Kefi Concepts, that made our weddings dreams a reality. We wanted to have the decor come together and look natural in its surroundings.
We loved a tee pee styled arch on the beach with flowers cascading down the arch in pastel tones. I didn’t even do a viewing of my flowers before my wedding because I knew right from the get go Cheska knew me and got our vision. On the beach we did wooden benches instead of chairs to blend more and we positioned the ceremony between two rocks. The sand was also racked to make it look neater. On the way to the ceremony which was quite a walk, we set up a station for people to leave their shoes and a brush for the sand.
We went for the same simple decor at the reception, lots of wood, lots of pastel flowers in small, singular arrangements and the highlight of our decor was the sage green napkins, candles and accents. Sage green was our wedding colour. We had the ceiling draped with fairy lights hanging long ways down the reception to draw your eye towards the ocean and again wooden tables and chairs.
The groom and groomsman wore natural toned linen suits with white collarless shirts, brown suspenders and white sneakers. They got their suits and pants from H&M and their shirts from Cotton On.
I made my bridesmaids and flower girls dresses (Gate Apparel).
My bridesmaids had similar dresses but with different necklines and slits. Both in sage green satin. Maid of honor with a V neckline, bridesmaid with a cowl neckline both with low backs. It was important to me to let them pick which elements of their dress they wanted to make it really individual.
My flower teen had a sage green satin and chiffon high low dress with and overlapping bodice.
My mini flower girl had a crocheted sage green dress. My mother in law knitted the bodice, my husbands aunt who has since passed away crocheted the flowers and I wove pieces of white and sage green chiffon into the bodice to make the skirt.
Gavin Brown, Garden route marriage officer. He gave us a beautiful, humorous, non denominational ceremony.
I cannot brag enough about our photographers and videographers. I swear they made us get so into our feels before our wedding they made our day so much more special and emotional.
We fell in love with the style of Inkawinka’s photography, emotional, spontaneous, fun loving. Everything we like to believe we are. So it was a no brainier that she was our girl! What we didn’t know is how much more we were actually getting, along with herself she brought her assistant Flavia Elisa Photography and she managed to capture some unknown beautiful moments too.
The Wedding Crashers did our videography. Abi is the sweet spot where fun and professionalism collide. She and her assistant partied with us and made us cry and delivered a truly epic, FUN, romantic video which was what we really wanted to capture.
Cheska Smith was our wedding planner. We didn’t have a big budget but we wanted small impactful moments with all our decor. Cheska brought us big impactful moments, photo booths, foot cleaning stations for the beach sand.
She was based in JHB but travelled down to Knysna for our wedding, she handled the logistics, decor, flowers, stationery, budget and our nerves leading up to the day.
Apart from the flights and the car rental to Knysna we really had no need for transport.
Butterfly Blu where we had our reception prepared our food for our wedding. Our guests raved about the quality of our food for months after.
We had two options for each course.
Starter
Caprese salad
Sweet and sour pulled pork tacos
Mains
Slow roasted herb infused lamb shank with creamed potatoes, green beans and port wine sauce
Dessert
Chocolate whiskey mouse
Crème brûlée with lemon curd
Harry and Jake did our wedding cake. We had a simple naked chocolate cake with chocolate ganache for one layer and vanilla sponge cake and Italian meringue buttercream. Decorated with bits of foil, flowers and sage green icing. What was most important to us was the taste and harry and jake nailed it!!!
Our wedding planner Cheska handled our stationery printing and my husband designed all of our stationery. We made a simple design of black font on white paper with quirky elements.
We did our our place cards as questionnaires that served as a guest book for us to keep complete with how our guests got there, how many kids we will have and advice to us. On the reverse side was our menu.
The order of service cards had cheeky little anecdotes and illustrations of our doggies celebrating from home. My husband did an amazing job with our stationery.
My husband and I couldn’t decide on whether we wanted to have a romantic or spicy routine so we settled on both. Just as our guests thought our painfully sweet waltz was winding down we surprised them with and upbeat Latin number to get the party started. Being Portuguese the wedding is remembered for the party and the open bar both of which we really focused on. We danced to “from the ground up” by Caleb and Kelsey and “bailar” by deorro
We took dance lessons at Dancemore and our DJ (DJ Mike) provided us with all the sound and lighting at our ceremony and reception.
Shaza Greef was our musician at our cocktail hour.
