They say the Devil’s in the details. I love love love the details. If one looks carefully, it is precisely the little things that make a wedding unique. We all have a version of the usual formula: a dress, a ceremony, a reception and then dancing till the lights go out. A wedding wouldn’t really be a wedding without these things. But it’s the little bits of prettiness captured in the DIYs and personal touches that make people go WOW!
When you start planning your wedding, friends and guides will tell you there are three things you need to book first: venue, DJ and photographer; the first of these being the venue. Finding one in the Western Cape is not a difficult task – they are there in abundance! Finding the right venue for your wedding (and that from a distance) = not so simple. More so if you’re picky. And Chris and I are picky. Boy, are we picky!
We had a whole list of requirements. The venue had to be beautiful, of course. It had to be a one-stop venue with ceremony and reception site in one place. It had to have onsite catering and accommodation. It had to be available until after twelve. The chairs at the venue had to be nice so that they didn’t have to be covered (I despise a seat cover). Linen, crockery and cutlery had to be included in the venue hire. And, last but not least, it needed to be available for the date we had chosen. Well, that narrowed down the search all right!
It’s less than three weeks until the day we are married and the craziness of wedding planning has officially hit. With all the loose ends to tie up some things are of course going awry, others better than expected – fun, excitement, stress – but what is standing out more than ever in all this planning madness is how incredibly remarkable my ‘almost-husband’ is. He’s been like anti-stress on this planning adventure. Wonderful in every way and with the wedding drawing nearer even more wonderful as the stressors increase. More than five years have passed and I still miss him when he leaves a room and get excited to see him upon his return. And I get to marry him. SOON! To say that I am excited to meet him at the church may be the greatest understatement that ever leaves my lips. :)
But what on earth will we do once the wedding is over? When everything has been taken down and the boxes of goods used on our special day are packed away and returned? Shall it be London, Paris, New York? All these amazing options were under serious consideration until our search was interrupted by a perfect find and we both knew we had found our answer. A Mauritian paradise it was destined to be. :)
When I was about 12 years old, I was driving in the car with my dad when a beautiful song by Ray Charles came on the radio. Turning the volume up, I mentioned to him that one day I want this man to play at my wedding. Without a beat, he immediately responded with a very determined “you shouldn’t be thinking of marriage yet, you’re far too young!” The fact is, most girls dream of that big day from a very young age and I was no exception. From the tiniest details, to the bigger meaning behind the “I do’s”, I LOVE a good old wedding bash!
Regardless of whether anything is actually purchased off it, setting up a wedding registry really is fantastic fun! Having my very own barcode-gun-in-hand-moment was definitely in the top five of wedding planning experiences that I was excited to have. And when we saw that O.live Chemistry of Living was one of the stores that the Bespoke Wedding Registry worked with we immediately knew that we wanted to register with them. Not only were the items that Laura from Bespoke Wedding Registry showed us stunningly beautiful, but the ‘contribute towards’ feature that they offer on the website that they set up for you allows people to spend any amount they like whilst contributing to bigger ticket items. So we were able to choose freely, even putting things like an ice-cream machine and a Kitchen Aid grain mill on our list. :) And as it turns out, I am a gravy boat person. Since registering I have, on more than one occasion, found myself falling in love with all different kinds of beautiful gravy boats. Gravy boats, Mason Cash mixing bowls, Egyptian cotton sheets and singing kettles now make me excited in the way that stationery excites those people you see smiling at the all the books and pens in CNA (Justin). And Laura is AMAZING. She was able to find everything we asked her about – taking on new suppliers to make sure our gift registry was just perfect for us. Don’t these just make you so happy?
Make way! Huzzah! It’s time to introduce you to the second of our current season of real life brides – don’t worry, we haven’t lost Candice just yet, but while she’s off adding finishing touches to her planning, it’s time to meet RLB #2, Liana. Like many of our readers, Liana has had the challenge of planning her Cape wedding from abroad – not the easiest of tasks! We’ll be hearing all about her ideas and inspirations, and how she’s overcome the distance challenge over the coming weeks, but for now, let’s make her feel welcome and hear all about how she and fiancé Chris met.
When Justin and I can’t decide which take away to order we tend to adopt the Lorelai Gilmore approach of ordering all the top contenders and enjoying any left over’s in the week that follows. Sometimes ordering more than one thing and combining them creates a unique and rather remarkable experience, the whole sometimes being even greater than the sum of its parts. Pasta on a pizza for example. Ambrosia. So when we realised that the venue we first fell in love with couldn’t fit all our wedding guests – I think we adopted a rather similar mentality. Completely discarding this perfect venue somehow seemed like a step in the wrong direction. Surely we could find a way for it to add something wonderful to the wedding experience, set the tone, the ambiance, stir up the excitement perhaps? The solution to our wonderings? The rehearsal dinner.
It’s four o’clock in the morning and I’m singing “I could have danced all night; I could have danced all night, and still have begged for more. I could have spread my wings, and done a thousand things I’ve never done before…” whilst searching for pictures of wedding décor online. I think it means we are officially in the final stretch. Less than two months to go! :))
So, how will we decorate our wedding? Well… there’s table settings, for which I found myself reading a book on French and English etiquette (which I am utterly relishing) to be certain as to which cutlery to hire. There are colour schemes, where contemplation has brought me to the interesting conclusion that I am completely smitten with the colour seafoam green (or perhaps it’s just these shoes?).
I’ve never been one to not know what I want. I have almost always had rather specific and clear preferences and ideas about what I do and do not care for. I know what I like and if I cannot find that I can most certainly always find what I do not like to rule things out. I don’t like horrors, I don’t like skiing, I don’t like bubblegum flavoured anything, and I don’t like minimalist design. What I do like… well since this is a dress post…
Beautiful luxurious fabrics, layer upon layer of soft, sheer material draped ever so delicately, as if angels have placed it to effortlessly express the femininity of its wearer. Ethereal. A dress that moves as you move, that seems to float as if itself experiencing the lightness of being so superbly and hopelessly in love. In the world of the dress I love Elie Saab, French Chantilly and Alencon lace, creations from the 1920s.. wedding dresses.
There is something about a wedding dress. It somehow isn’t just a white dress, or a pretty outfit. It says something. It emanates something. Maybe it’s the joy that shines out of the bride herself, or the enchantment of her devotion that gently settles on her cheeks like the snow that creates Evangeline’s dress in the movie Nanny Macphee. Maybe it’s the way the groom looks at her, which seems to expose and magnify both inner and outer beauty for all to appreciate or maybe it’s simply the shared knowledge of the magnitude of what wearing the dress means.
And I guess what I would like most out of my dress is for it to make me feel like a bride. Authentically me, but also special, because the day is special, the moment is special.
Colour-wise I would like it to be ivory – I am completely taken with the creamy look of the dress in this picture!
I would like the type of wedding that my younger cousins enjoy. A celebration of our family and friends – where its littlest members know that they are adding something truly invaluable to our day. A family wedding. Beauty without pretence. A day with an air of excitement, a newness, a belief in magic.
Being from a large family I was lucky enough to be a flower girl three times growing up, and I was a flower girl in some of my first and fondest wedding memories. I remember getting dressed with the bride and her bridesmaids, with all the excitement in that room – the hair, the makeup, the flowers. I remember posing for photographs in a field, being made to feel special, being thanked by name in a speech. I recall my feet swinging – not yet being able to touch the lovely grassy floor underfoot, and I remember catching the bouquet. It was simply wonderful – being privy to all the excitement, and being a part of something so special.
