We prayed long and hard for the Lord to keep the rain in the clouds for our day, but God had other plans. It rained, and we had to have our ceremony on the dance floor. It looked beautiful and gave a very cosy intimate feeling. Luckily we were able to have our bridal party and couple photos outside since it stopped raining a while after the ceremony had ended.
I (Monique) was a bit sad that we could not have our ceremony where we had planned, because the view is stunning and the grass area is surrounded by the biggest most beautiful trees, but at the end we were able to take our photos there.
When we red through a small guest book, that one of my bridesmaids had secretly arranged, my aunt wrote ' And there your wedding day has come with tangible blessings in the form of rain drops. God is saying, 'I am blessing your marriage, as I am blessing the earth today'. This had changed our feeling about the rain completely.
The honeymoon was the one thing we realised we want to do all out. We said to each other that this time, the first moments after the wedding, is something we will never have in our lives again.
We decided to book a two week honeymoon to Italy! We used HTH Travel and they were amazing! All our accommodation was booked within walking distance from city centres and sites and our visa appointment went very smoothly.
We visited Stresa, Venice (huge bucket list tick), Florence, Cinque Terre, The leaning tower of Pisa, Siena and Rome.
The highlight of our trip was our Basil Pesto class at Nessun Dorma in Cinque Terre. The food was out of this world and we had a view that belongs on a post card. Definitely a must do if you ever find yourself there.
I love glitter! I always said that if I could shower in glitter everyday I would. From the start I knew I would love to have a dress that shines from top to bottom, but also wanted that princess moment. I found my dream wedding dress at Allora Bridal. They did my alterations and made my huge skirt as well as my 3m long veil - the complete princess look.
I had my skirt on for the ceremony and bridal party photos and took some couple photos without the skirt as well. I had tule bows that I attached to my straps for our. entrance as Mr and Mrs Gouws.
My shoes were simple white block heals from Pesso that I received as a gift from one of my bridesmaid's moms.
A high school friend of my recently started her own jewellery brand and she offered to make me custom earrings. We played around with design ideas and ended up with the perfect ones. My engagement ring Emile bought at Ring Artisan in Stellenbosch and we had our wedding bands made by Conrad Basson.
My hair is very straight so a head full of curls, with the weather as it was, would maybe have lasted 5 minutes. I decided to go for a classic low ponytail. For makeup I went for a slight glam look. I told Li-Ohnie that she could go wild with the shimmer eyeshadow and highlighter!
We got married at a fairly new venue - Country Sjiek.
We always wanted an industrial vibe to our venue and I dreamed of getting married in Wolseley because the rolling mountains are truly magnificent!
Renee at the venue knows what she is doing and she ran our wedding day without a glitch.
Since the venue is only an hour and a half from where most of our guests live not all of them stayed the night. Country sjiek has beautiful accommodation on the farm as well as camp sites and there is a lot of accommodation in the area. Quite a few guests stayed at River Edge Accommodation which is a 5min drive from the venue.
I did not do too much to prep for the wedding. I was pretty happy with the condition of my skin and hair so I thought I'd leave everything as is, rather than change my skincare and have the risk of a bad reaction. I work in the wedding industry and the months leading up to the wedding was peak season, so to be fair, I did not really have time to do too much extra.
I am a wedding florist myself and work almost every weekend from November to April (Peak wedding season) I studied event management so you can say that I've been in the industry for about 7 years now. That being said, I have seen 100's of weddings and events where I could get inspiration from, source suppliers and see a lot of venues. Luckily, choosing my suppliers was the easiest task of the whole wedding!
I LOVE pink (As you can tell from the photos) and I have become very good friends with fellow florists in the industry! (In fact all three of my bridesmaids are florists) I have given them free rein with regards to the flowers. I did have some requests on colour (ie. Pink), vases, candle holders and candle colours but other than that they were free to design what they wanted. All of the girls helped out to set up the flowers and decor, but Crisna from Bouwer Flowers took the lead.
At every wedding I've worked at with Baie Goeters it has always been a blast! They have a floral couch on their catalogue that needed to be at our wedding. They work neatly and efficiently and their staff is always friendly and helpful! They made our fairy light dreams come true with a messy roof installation. I also sourced our napkins from them.
The rest of the hired items such as glassware, rattan under plates, gold cutlery and wooden cross back chairs Renee from Country Sjiek arranged for us. This is a service she offers to all her couples and it made that part of the planning a breeze.
Goeters specialises in the utmost imaginative creations of beautiful décor and lights for weddings and events.
Emile is a very tall man with long limbs. He has never found a suit that fits him like a glove. The sleeves are always too short or the waist is too wide, so even before we got engaged we knew we had to get him a tailor made suit. We loved the service at GD Suits which we found on recommendation of friends.
The groomsmen had the opportunity so source their own black suits and shoes.
I played around with ideas for the bridesmaids, but ultimately I wanted them to feel comfortable in their dresses. The wedding dress code was formal, so their dresses were long. I bought the perfect colour of pink fabric and gave them the opportunity to pick their own style. All three bridesmaids live in different areas so I did not tie them to a certain dressmaker. Although all of them (including my mom and sister-in-law) ended up at the same place.
Our marriage officer was Tobie Verreynne. They have served along side my parents a few years ago as facilitators for several Christian seminars.
Our photographer was Marelize Bosman. I got to know her through a couple that got married in April 2022. I did their flowers and she did their photos and I instantly fell in love with her style. I love the light bright editing style and she made us feel so comfortable.
Since I studied event managent I figured it would have been a scandal to hire a wedding planner. So I did all the planning, but Renee from Country Sjiek did the on-the-day coordination.
Dishfood & Social did our food - they are the preferred suppliers at the venue. Their canapés and lamb shank was out of this world!
Emile and I are both not big on cake, so instead we stacked doughnuts on one another for our wedding 'cake' we also had extra doughnuts that formed part of our dessert. We bought the doughnuts from Krispy Kreme (our favourite)
Our dessert was part of a wedding gift from Ziska from Tuist Craft Ice Cream! She makes the most incredible ice cream with real fresh ingredients. She also makes her own cones, fresh, while serving which is a real crowd pleaser with the smell that comes with it! Our Flavours were berry swirl cheesecake, peppermint crisp, mango and lime sorbet and chocolate fudge brownie
I have designed two friends' wedding stationery and thought I would be able to design my own. Wrong! I had a certain floral look I wanted and was just not able to get it with Canva. So two weeks before the wedding I called up my good friend Oriane from Oriative Creations and she nailed it! Oriane did my business website and logo and since then we became very good friends!
Our DJ was DJ PEPE. He was an absolute blast and very professional! He worked in a suit and completely hit the brief with the music. He did the whole setup from speakers, too lighting, and even a smoke machine. Included in our package was sound for the ceremony.
Goeters specialises in the utmost imaginative creations of beautiful décor and lights for weddings and events.
