I’ve dreamt of this day since I was a little girl. Our wedding was a forest themed wedding. With all the planning underway and my brother and sister flying in from the United Kingdom, we set the date for 11 December 2019. However, there were a few hiccups and these made the day all the more memorable.
We had just experienced a week of nonstop rain. With the wedding planned for an outdoors ceremony this could prove disastrous. We prayed for a miracle and for a break in the heavy down pours. On the morning of the wedding, blue skies.
I had the most amazing bridal party. They kept me calm and helped me prepare for my big day. We spent the day having our hair and make-up done. An hour before the ceremony the rain started pouring down. Washing away my beautiful wedding dream, but almost as suddenly as it started the rain stopped and the sun peaked through the clouds to unveil the most beautiful crystals on every branch and leaf of every tree. It looked like a fairy tale. The organizers of the ceremony set up all the decorations in the indoor chapel, but it wasn’t raining anymore, so I requested that the wedding be held outdoors. Who’s afraid of a little mud?
The ceremony was beautiful. My grandfather walked me down the first part of the aisle and handed me over to my father, who walked me down the final stretch, to hand me over to my husband to be. We had a personalized message and we ended the ceremony with unity sand, a kiss and a rumble in the clouds to seal the deal.
Our reception was filled with some wonderful moments. My sister delivered a wonderful speech and had me in tears. Our first dance was beautiful; it felt like we were floating on clouds. My husband and I had a twerking contest and we all had a laugh at “he said, she said”.
We spent the rest of the night dancing away with our guests, eating donuts and taking photos at the magic mirror photo booth with our friends and family.
Yes! Yes! YES!!
We thought that we would spend our honeymoon in our beautiful country, South Africa, traveling along the Garden Route.
We hopped on a flight to Cape Town, drove to Oudtshoorn after a stop at Ronnies Sex Shop. The next day started with a cave tour at the Cango Caves, followed by a tour at Highgate Ostrich Farm. Our day ended with wine tasting, Mosselbay, sushi and a bon fire.
Our adventure was only getting started, with a hike and swim in a waterfall, in Wilderness followed by abseiling into a ravine. One of our fondest memories is of a place we stayed in Wilderness, Tequila Moon, with a view to die for, the best steak you will ever eat, at Joplin's, just around the corner and we met a little (big) puppy called Barneby, an Old-English Sheepdog, yes the Dulux paint dog.
From here we drove to Knysna and interacted with the largest land mammal, the mighty African Elephant at Knysna Elephant Park. What an amazing and humbling experience. We ended the day with an Oyster Boat Tour, cruising past the Knysna heads with wine and oysters.
Early morning rise, breakfast and off to Plettenberg Bay. Swimming with cape fur seals. Diving and spinning and twirling and oddly a lot of staring...well that's just what seals do apparently. They call them "the dogs of the ocean". We raced off to Tsitsikamma where we kayaked up the Stormsrivier. We jumped off cliffs into deep dark waters and learned a lot about the surrounding habitat and the waters below. We had the best wood fired pizza at Papa Africa and slept in a Glamping tent.
Beach day on the beautiful Dolphin Beach in Jeffreys Bay. We had way too much food at the wonderful Walskipper restaurant. We then headed to Addo Adrenalin and did a superman zipline ride of nearly 500m. *Superman music starts playing*. The day ended at Kudu Ridge Game Lodge with some drinks, a beautiful sunset, a bonfire and freshly caught fish on the braai.
Our adventure comes to a close with the Addo Elephant National Park. A beautiful park with a great variety of South Africa's finest animals. We ended our adventure in Port Elizabeth, where we caught a flight back to Johannesburg.
I wore a pure white princess cut style wedding dress.
I had an up-style hairstyle with smokey-eye makeup done by, Avyanna Hair & Beauty and Demi Potgieter.
I wore the traditional something old (the petticoat my mother wore on her wedding), something new (the lingerie my maid of honour gave to me at my lingerie party), something borrowed (The hair piece I borrowed from my sister in law), something blue (The garter that my sister wore at her wedding).
We got married at Lavandou Wedding Venue in Pretoria East.
Some of our guests stayed over at the venue in what they call "My French House" Some of our guests stayed over at Nkwe Pleasure Resort, about 1.4km from the venue.
I spoiled my bridal party with a spa day, where we spent the night before the wedding, as a thank you gift for all they have done for me, leading up to the wedding.
We wanted our décor to look like a forest, with lots of greens, white flowers, moss, lanterns and candles.
The groom wore a charcoal three piece suit.
The groomsmen wore charcoal trousers, charcoal and grey undercoats and white shirts.
The bridesmaids wore charcoal dresses.
We used Armadillo Media as our photograper and videographer. They also did our engagement shoot.
We also used the Magic Mirror photo booth to entertain our guests at the reception.
