I was so excited I could not sleep because I could not wait to wake up again. What an honor to become Carl's wife. The journey of meeting my better half, being asked the question that changed my life, planning this wonderful day together and eventually spending the best day of our life with everyone dear to us was amazing - from start to finish. And the best is yet to come...Today is the first day of the rest of our lives.
We chose the 9th of August to get married since that means that we will be able to spend the rest of our anniversaries together since it is on the public holiday.
We had a wonderful 6 night honeymoon. We spent our first night at The Cederberg Wilderness Lodge in Clanwilliam. Here we received the absolute best service that we had ever had. We were treated like celebrities and spoiled from the moment we entered until the wave goodbye. We enjoyed fine dining, an absolute amazing view from our bed and was even surprised by a candlelit bath and champagne when we entered our room after dinner.
The 2nd, 3rd and 4th nights we spent at Kagga Kamma. Here we had a lovely room in the rocks, we had a special hot stone couples massage, enjoyed a quadbike safari and went on two sun-down cruises where we got to see some animals and had a sun downer drink on the highest point of the farm. We met two other couples on honeymoon and had a great time sharing some moments from our special day's.
Our last stop was at Aquila Game Reserve where we spent two nights in a lovely room with an outside shower. We were welcomed to our room with some bubbles, and a biltong and nut platter. Here we enjoyed two safaris seeing four of the big 5. The Saturday we spent watching rugby since it was my husband's high school's inter-schools as well as my old school - both won! We had an absolute blast watching these games and cheering them on. We ended off our honeymoon with a horse safari on the most beautiful horses.
We enjoyed every moment of our honeymoon in our beautiful country.
I went for an elegant but yet romantic look. I portray myself as a very elegant but yet fun and bubbly person and I wanted my look to represent my personality. I wore a Bride & Co dress with no detail but the brilliant white satin gave the dress a WOW look. It was such a fun dress, it even had pockets. I wore a long veil creating a train following me into the church. But as soon as the party started, I took my veil off and had a floorlength dress easy to dance with. My hair and make-up was soft but I brought in some fun with my purple lipstick - Rebel by MAC, it is all in the name... My makeup was done by Margo from Blush and my hair was done by a family friend but whom is an excellent stylist, Maryke von Wielligh. I wore red boots with a high gold heel. I LOVE red, therefore the choice in color, the boots was for comfort and warmth and the gold high heel was to bring out my sense of style. All my jewellery was carefully handpicked by my mom and I to complement my dress to the fullest.
We got married at my family farm called Willemsrivier in Nieuwoudtville in the Northern Cape. It was a beautiful time of the year since August and September is flower season. This farm has been in my family for 9 generations and it was an absolute honor to turn my dad's shed into a temporary wedding venue. Between my mom's guesthouses on the farm, and the rest of the town's guesthouses, all our family and friends had a place to stay for the long weekend.
My mom, sister-in-law and myself went for a massage and to get our nails done the Tuesday before our wedding at Salon Elkana in Vredendal. This was a wonderful treat for everyone including myself.
Our decor and flowers was done by Gerhard @ Blom deVilliers. He did an absolute amazing job at creating the exact vibe that I wanted. He had to arrange all furniture, lighting and decor from scratch since we got married in a farm shed with nothing in it. We rented a tent for the predrinks from Werner @ Wolfkop.
Wolfkop is the ideal weekend wedding venue for the free spirited bride and groom, who want to spoil their guests with a unique weekend get-away.
My handsome groom wore a light grey fitted suit with a beautifully textured white shirt and an elegant black bow tie. His groomsmen all wore black suits with white shirts, each with either a red, purple or pink bow tie. They all looked handsome but yet as if they could have loads of fun.
The dominee that I grew up did the honor of marrying us. We spent quite some time with Christi Thirion before our big day and he blessed us with an amazing ceremony that fulfilled all our wishes. We decided to have a holy communion as part of our ceremony, write our own vows and have our guests witness the signing of our marriage certificate. This was important for us since we wanted God as well as all our witnesses to bless our marriage and support us in the future.
We found our photographers on The Entertainer App. We decided to take a chance on this young couple, Zark and Beverley from EyelikePhotography, whom started their own photography business. We also convinced them to do their very first videography service on us. They have exceeded our expectations and we are pleased that we took a chance on them.
We had a wedding planner who helped us to plan our big day. Jessica from JL Weddings.
A lovely Oom, Oom Thinus, from Nieuwoudtville decided to drive us to church in one of his old cars. He has a garage in Nieuwoudtville called Protea Motors. If you ever drive through the town, do visit him and have a look at all his fabulous old cars.
Laura @ Clove Concepts did all the catering - everything from snacks while we got dressed, the canapes, starters, mains and desserts at the wedding, as well as breakfast and potjie for the Saturday after the wedding and a breakfast pack for the Sunday.
Our wedding cake was made by Alrie van Wyk @ Papkuilsfontein. This was our dessert for the Saturday evening after our potjie. It was absolutely delicious.
A friend of mine, Juan-Mari Deysel, did all of our design work for the save the date, invites, wedding newspaper and name plates. She did a wonderful job and had loads of patience with me.
Since our theme was elegant and romantic, and our newspaper was called Willemsrivier Wals, we decided to open the dancefloor with a Quick Waltz. Although we love dancing, we had to learn this dance from scratch. We took lessons from Jacques Carstens Dance Studio.
We had a fabulous DJ called DJ Hermie SA. He did an amazing job. He read the crowd like no DJ I have heard has done. He was really excellent and we would recommend him to anyone.
While our guests were enjoying predrinks, we had a local husband and wife play guitar and sing some songs. They did an excellent job and our guests really enjoyed listening to them - Arika and Willouw.
Wolfkop is the ideal weekend wedding venue for the free spirited bride and groom, who want to spoil their guests with a unique weekend get-away.
