Our Wedding Day

Its been just over two months since Lorenzo and I tied the knot. I am absolutely loving being married to this angel of a man, so much so that I am STILL on a mental honeymoon!

I wanted to create a nice blog post about our wedding. This won’t necessarily be as detailed as our wedding vlogs are (PS: If you haven’t seen it yet, check out Part One and Part Two), but I wanted to give you some more details about our wedding day, the process leading up to it, and of course show off some more photos that wasn’t shared on my social media.

My Dress

Let’s start with the prettiest dress in the world, shall we?
It all started when I was googling for amazing wedding dress designers in Cape Town, as one does. I struggled in this department because it was just such a wide variety and I simply could not choose. Lorenzo and I attended the Canal Walk Wedding show and obviously I had a Pinterest board, and this helped a lot because I found some great ideas for stationary designs, dress ideas, and colour schemes.
However, I needed to actually go into a dress boutique and try on various dresses. Are you on of those people who needs to touch clothing and try it on before you purchase?

I remember googling “wedding dress Cape Town” and Robyn Roberts website popped up as one of the first links. I clicked it and absolutely fell in love with the way she designed femininity and elegance in a dress. I sent Robyn an email as soon as I could so that I could come in for a consultation, and trust me, I was so overwhelmed with all the gorgeous gowns!

Robyn and I worked together to create the most beautiful wedding gown. It was a semi-mermaid style with long sleeves and lace detail. We added a stunning tulle skirt for my ceremony look, which had me feeling like a beautiful princess. Once the time arrived for the reception, I took off the tulle skirt and flaunted my skin-tight, one of a kind gown.

Bridesmaids

Many of you guessed that I would have three-four bridesmaids. And especially because we were planning on having an intimate wedding. Initially, I only wanted two bridesmaids but I knew that it would create some sort of tension in my life. Haha! It was such a tough decision to have to almost ‘exclude’ certain women in my circle, but I knew that they would want me to be happy regardless. The ladies I chose all played a significant part in my life: My best friend in the form of my cousin, my high school best friend, and my new sister. I told them from the get-go that I didn’t want anything major when it came to all the “special events” during the process, like my bridal shower or the bachelorette party. Each lady played such an important role, by either helping me with errands, comforting me in times of panic (and trust me, there were those moments!), and just being there for a good laugh.
I think my favourite moments with my girls included:
1) When we found the perfect dresses for them, and each of them looked amazing in their dress! How does that even work, man?! How does each girl, each a different body shape, look THAT great in a dress?
2) Doing their makeup on our wedding day. This was something so special for me and I wouldn’t change a thing. I was able to bond with each girl whilst doing her makeup.

I only had one flower girl – My new sister, Kaylin. Kaylin and I looked for a good couple of months for a pretty flower girl dress, but we couldn’t find anything that she absolutely loved. So my mom-in-law and I decided that it would be best for her dress to be made. Her material was bought at a fabric store in Wynberg, and a family friend made her dress within a few days. Another little cutie pie in our wedding was my nephew, Storm. His mom bought him a cute shirt and chino, and Lo and I decided to get him a kid’s bowtie in Access Park. You have to see how cute he looked walking down the aisle!

The Ceremony

When I think of our ceremony, so many emotions come to mind. I was nervous, excited, tearful, and so happy to see my husband to be. When we arrived at The Styling Shed (exactly on time, might I add 😉) I could feel a warmth fill my body as my body started racing. This was it. Ahhh! I can still remember the exact way I felt as I saw my dad walk towards me to lead me down the isle. It was the most magical and overwhelming emotion I felt. So much so that I think I came across as emotionless because I tried so hard not to cry. Our ceremony was truly beautiful and although it was windy, I would not change a thing. We started the ceremony off with worship music to invite the Lord’s presence into our entire day. We felt that this was the only way to kick off this exciting day! Many of you may see that I have the words “Ever Be” tattooed on my arm, and this is the exact song that we sang to open up the ceremony.

Another special part of our ceremony that will always stand out to me is our Unity Cross ceremony, where our pastor explained each step to the congregation as he went along. The Unity Cross has three parts – The sturdy outside frame, the delicate inside and the pegs. The outer part is the husband, the delicate inner is the wife and the 3 pegs is God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus. Our Unity Cross was gifted to us by uncle and aunt who live in America, and now it has a special place in our home. You can see a photo of our beautiful, ivory cross if you scroll down.

The Stationary

Lorenzo and I designed all our stationary ourselves. I think we are quite blessed because both of us love to design, work on Photoshop/Illustrator and create beautiful graphics so when it came to designing our stationary, it was quite fun! As I mentioned in the first wedding vlog, we only used free items to design the stationary, like our save the dates and invitations. if you’d like to have a look at the website where I always get free goods, click here.

We went for a simple look for all of our stationary – white with greenery (eucalyptus to be exact). This was also to tie beautifully with our flowers and décor on the day.
If you’re looking for ready made stationary, such as thank you cards or tags, then definitely check out Merrypak in Ndabeni.

The Reception

Ahh! Our reception was seriously beautiful. As you may have seen from the vlog, we came in the day before to add our little touches here and there before the day of.

The Flower Girl and Grand Style Hiring did such a phenomenal job with our flowers and décor, and I couldn’t be more grateful. When I met with Nazeema, I gave her a few inspiration photos but let her know that she pretty much has free reign over the wedding. She could do what she wanted within a certain colour palette (white, nude and green) and KILLED it! Yes! I would highly recommend her for any of your occasions, be it a birthday, wedding or baby shower.

I actually can’t explain all the stunning flower arrangements in detail. I think its best for you to have a look at the photographs and be blown away 😊

The Wedding Cake

I was the type of bride who has no idea what I wanted when it came to the cake. Lorenzo didn’t know what he wanted either. So like the typical millennials that we are, we headed to Pinterest to get a good idea of what looks good. Did I want your typical white three-tier cake? Hell no (no offense if that’s your vibe. You do you!). Did I want a naked cake? Kind of. So I searched various pages on Instagram and came across a gorgeous two-tier cake that had macaroons and donuts all over it – very unconventional and so up our ally. The one! We had our beautiful wedding cake made by Sugar Studio in Durbanville, who also delivered it to the venue.

The Honeymoon Suite

We were blessed to have Destinate Travel work alongside us for our wedding. My bridesmaids and I got ready in the Honeymoon Suite in Bonne Esperance in Stellenbosch. It was truly such a beautiful place to get ready with my girls and go back to once our wedding day came to an end. Thank you so much to Destinate Travel for allowing us to stay in the gorgeous space!

Here are a few items that I didn’t chat about, in case you’d like to get it for yourself:

Paula
Earrings: Colette by Colette Hayman
Wedges: Steve Madden
Garter: Blush
Dressing gown: Vows bridal shop
Bride bag: Colette by Colette Hayman

Lorenzo
Tie: Edgars
Shoes: Woolworths
Suit: Markham

Bridal party
Dressing gowns: Cotton On Body
Dresses: YDE
Earrings: Colette by Colette Hayman
Suits: Markham
Ties: Woolworths

Receiving his gift from me. I asked my brother to give to him before he left for the venue.

This cutie pie! Ah!

The men in my life.

Gifted my mom a special something.

Thank you to Esteé Lauder for my wedding day perfume!

My makeup was done by the amazing Zar Brides.

The Flower girl did all our flower arrangements.

Worship. We sang “Ever Be”

Our Unity Cross. A gift from my uncle in the USA.

The Styling Shed.

Lorenzo’s mom, Gwen.

My mother, Cheryl.

My dad giving us a very special speech.

Courtney singing “Best Part”

Lorenzo’s brother, Lyle.

FaceTiming my uncle in America.

The simple, down to earth main meal.

I had an emotional speech.

Lorenzo’s father doing the toast.

Lorenzo’s dad and sister, Kaylin.

Playing the “Who knows best” game.

My beautiful gran.

My cousin really didn’t want to catch the bouquet, but she did 😉

Her expression!

The send off.