For those of you who follow our inspiration boards here on Cap Classique, you’ll know that aqua is a big colour crush for me at the moment. So you won’t be surprised that I was attracted to this pretty, classic wedding photographed by the super nice Mark Engelbrecht, who was kind enough to send it over a few weeks back. I love that it has loads of sweet personal touches, without trying too hard, and a sort of dreamy serene quality that’s a combination of Mark’s style and a bride and groom who were completely happy and relaxed. Thank you to both of them for opening their hearts to share their day with us! Enjoy!
Author: gaby
Travel-inspired Wedding Details
**UPDATE: Looking for fresh travel themed wedding ideas? Read our latest roundup here.**
One of the mini-trends I’ve noticed popping up in quite a few weddings lately is the use of travel-inspired details. As a keen traveller myself, I love this, especially the way so many couples are using it to bring more of their histories and personalities to the wedding. It might be something as simple as naming tables after places they’ve been, but there are also lots of very cute and creative ideas coming through for making travel even more of a central motif, especially when combined with a vintage vibe. Here are some of my favourites. I’ve grouped them by the different wedding elements, but many of the ideas can be adapted to other parts of the wedding, so there’s plenty of opportunity to make this trend your own if wanderlust is something you and your partner have in common. And while you’re at it, why not have your guests contribute to your honeymoon as an alternative to the gift list? The Wedding Gift List Registry can do this for you in South Africa.
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Real Wedding at the Stellenbosch Hofmeyrsaal {Mona & Paul}
We’re kicking off this week’s weddings with a sweet and sunny celebration from Maree Louw of Natural Light Photography. Pinks and purples are a popular colour combination for South African brides at the moment, and they’re the perfect complement to the Cape sunshine that blessed today’s couple on their wedding day! I especially love the use of bougainvillea flowers tucked into the napkins and filling baskets for confetti. It makes such a difference when a couple thinks outside of the box when it comes to which flowers they use – although I adore the classics like roses and peonies, there’s something very fresh about spotting something a little more unexpected, and bouganvilleas just scream summer to me. (And, since we’re having a last late burst of summer here in the UK, it perfectly matches my mood. Now, if I just had an ice cream…)
Inspiration Board: Lavender Love
Today’s board was inspired by Jules Morgan‘s gorgeous pic of the bride walking through lavender from Jacqui & Neil’s wedding last week. I adore lavender as an accent, and there’s so many ways you can incorporate it. Take your inspiration from Provence and incorporate French touches, add burlap for a rustic vibe, pair it with colours like butternut orange or sage green, or with other blues or purples – the possibilities are endless. Today I’ve kept it simple, putting lavender against crisp, clean whites and grey. If this was my wedding, I wouldn’t have any other purple touches – just the lavender tucked into napkins, forming the bouquet, making the lemonade oh so pretty. I’d have white tables, silver vases, stylish bridesmaid’s dresses in shades of grey. And can you just imagine the smell? Beautiful.
Colours: Lavender, white and grey
Top row (l-r): Bride in lavender field; lavender bouquet; place setting; cheese & wine; croquembouche
Row 2: Bridesmaids’ dresses; LOVE sign; engraved pocket watch; lavender lemonade; shoes
Row 3: Long table; bride & groom; wine barrel cooler; white chairs; lavender favours.
Oh Darling Bride! Engagement Shoot
One of the best things for me about blogging is fabulous people who make up the blog community internationally. I have a lot of love for many of these ladies and their blogs, but today I get to introduce you to one of them who’s also part of the (small but emergent) South African blogging world (and we all know local is lekker!). Oh Darling Bride! is a charming collaboration between two South African real life brides, who bring you finds and favourites from around the web as they make their own wedding journeys (so be sure to check it out!). One of them, Monique, is here today to share her engagement session, shot by the fabulous Warren Williams, and the super cute story of how she and fiance, Kaz, came to meet. I just love how sweet and genuine these two are in front of the camera, and it just shows that being yourselves and having fun make for the best photographs.
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As a wedding obsessed blogging bride-to-be, I was thrilled to win an engagement shoot with Cape Town based photographer Warren Williams, but as a camera-shy girl, I was equally nervous.
It was a freezing cold Saturday in early August and we had planned to take photos in Kirstenbosch but the clouds blanketed the mountain in a threatening shade of grey so we relocated to Rhodes Memorial. Warren made us feel so relaxed, helped us to forget the cold, our nerves and best of all, he made us laugh!
After our experience I would definitely recommend an e-session as a way to help couples learn to have fun in front of the camera, deal with any camera anxiety and find some poses that work.
Real Wedding at Rockhaven Farm {Jacqui & Neil} Part 2
Welcome back folks! I know you were loving Part 1, so here’s the second half of the beautiful wedding of Jacqui and Neil – enjoy!
From Jacqui:
After the service, Neil and I stayed behind with Jules to take a few photos. The rest of the guests headed back to Rockhaven Farm where pre-dinner drinks and canapes were served on the lawns and in the boathouse. Rockhaven has the most beautiful gardens full of roses and lavender and a spectacular view of the dam and mountains so we kept the decor very simple. We chose white couches and chairs for lounging on, wine barrels at the entrance to the boat house and apple and orchid floral arrangements. Elgin is famous for its apples so we also used them to hold our place names. I’m a teacher so the apples and the chalkboard with instructions about seating arrangements were in keeping with that too. We had placed guests on one of three tables (named London, Belgium and Dubai after our moves) but they could pick where they wanted to sit and used the apple with their name on it to mark their place. It saved us a lot of agonising over seating arrangements and left people free to sit with someone they wanted to chat to.
My mum made a few photoboards with pictures of Neil and I over the years and hung them on the walls of the boathouse. It was a fun personal touch which our guests enjoyed. We served a mix of SA and Indian inspired canapes with local Silverthorne bubbly and Doc ‘n the Croc provided light, jazzy background music to keep the guests entertained. To introduce a touch of India before dinner, we had baskets of bangles and bindis for all our female guests to wear. Two of our friend’s daughters handed them out and helped our guests to put together sets of bangles. All our guests loved them and a few of the men were spotted in bindis too! After pre-dinner drinks, baby sitters took all the children up to the main house where they had games and dinner before bedtime so that their parents could enjoy the evening child-free.
We wanted to change things up a bit as the sun set and the guests moved from the gardens to the large barn where the reception would be held. Lamps had been lit along the edges of the fountains outside the barn and the water was covered in brightly coloured petals. We had chosen warm orange and burgandy table cloths with an Indian print on them. (The same print and colours were the inspiration for all our stationery.) Bright orange, pink and red flowers added to the Indian vibe. We toned things down a little bit with stone coloured napkins, table lamps, mirrored vases and mirrors under the candles. The tables at our wedding were named London, Belgium and Dubai after our moves. We had had the print from the invitations printed onto the dance floor and a mix of purple and orange lamp shades suspended over it.
We also tried to reflect our backgrounds in the menu and wine list and sourced as much as we could from the Elgin Valley. Niki and her team from Zest catering in Botrivier did such a great job. We had a roasted butternut salad with goat’s cheese, crispy bacon and toasted almond flakes as a starter, followed by an Indian main of lamb curry, paneer and spinach curry in a creamy tomato sauce, chaat ratnesh (spicy seasoned potatoes), basmati rice, yellow daal, naan and roti and cucumber raita, tomato salsa and coconut and green chilli chutney. The Indian guests felt right at home and the SA and overseas guests loved trying Indian food. The dessert was wedding cake ( the groom is known for his love of cake), Belgian chocolates (we lived there for a while so our Belgian friends flew them in for us), barfi (an indian sweet) and koeksisters. All our wines (except the Silverthorne bubbly) were local to the Elgin Valley. We used wines from Belfield, Paul Cluver, Iona and Beaumont Estate and our guests really enjoyed trying wines from the area they were staying in.
Just before dinner, Neil surprised me and all of our guests with a fire dancing show. It was fantastic to be surprised and got the evening off to such a great start. Our DJ kept everyone on the dancefloor all night with a real mix of international music and old favourites. Our first dance had to be a salsa as that was how we met!
We could not have asked for a better day and nicer people to share it with. Having a wedding planner really paid off on the day as we had nothing to worry about except enjoying ourselves with our friends and family.
Jacqui’s advice to other brides:
- Choose your bridesmaids carefully! I had three and they were such an amazing support team, making sure I took time out from all the organising, taking over my To Do list, ad helping to make all the preparations so much more fun.
- Choose a couple of areas to involve your family in so they can contribute but not so much that they spend the whole day running around and missing out on the wedding. My Dad was in charge of signposting and directions and paid for the hire of the church, my Mum made up the bouquets and buttonholes and the photoboards and Neil’s family took me sari shopping in India and helped to pick out all the items we needed for the ceremony.
- Having a whole weekend to spend with everyone was amazing. We had so many people from overseas that one day would have been too little time to spend with them. A post-wedding brunch is also a good time to catch up with all the gossip from the night before, and they didn’t add a huge amount to the total cost of the weekend.
- Money spent on a good photographer is never a waste. We loved our photos and in hindsight wished we had booked Jules for the braai and brunch too. Take the time to choose someone you feel comfortable with as they are going to spend the whole day with you. We loved working with Jules.
- Use local resources. Our venue providers and the girls at the Elgin Tourism Office were a huge help with finding appropriate accommodation for all our guests and making sure people found their way around and enjoyed their stay.
- Take a few moments in the church and at the reception to look around you and to lock the day into your memory. It goes by so fast and it’s lovely to have a few minutes to pause and take it all in.
Thank you so much, Jacqui and Neil! Wishing you both every happiness and blessing in the years to come.
Service providers:
Venues: Pre-wedding braai – Southhill; Ceremony: Applethwaite Farm Church; Reception – Rockhaven Farm; Post-wedding Brunch: Highlands Road Deli
Wedding planner: Christina Holt for Wedding Concepts
Photography: Jules Morgan
Videography: Vicky Goslin
Flowers & décor: Sorrento
Flowers for bouquets and buttonholes: Linda Keevey at Heaven Scent Gardens
Catering: Zest Catering
Cake: Kanya Hunt – +27 82 375 5200, [email protected]
Wine: Paul Cluver, Belfield, Iona, Silverthorne, SouthHill, Highlands Road Estate
Hair & makeup: Sebastine Pepler
Stationery: Lara
Local expertise: Elgin Tourism Office
SBB ♥ Jules Morgan Photography & Wedding Concepts, a featured member of our Directory
Real Wedding at Rockhaven Farm {Jacqui & Neil} Part 1
Oh, how I LOVE this wedding! It’s just bursting with colour and life and joy, and with personal touches, and most of all, with family and friends having a great time celebrating the two people who are joining their lives together (not to mention the kind of fab details we’ve come to expect from the Wedding Concepts team). It’s everything we all want our wedding days to be. And no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t narrow down Jules Morgan’s beautiful, beautiful photos to a single post. So – yay! – you get two of them! And even better, the bride, Jacqui has been sweet enough to send over plenty of background that you won’t want to miss. So… tada! Here’s Part 1, and be sure to come back later for Part 2.
Inspiration Board: Curacao, Peony & Russet
This weekend I’ve been having a play around with the colours included in the Pantone spring colour lineup – love all of them! There are endless combinations to consider for your wedding, all fresh and pretty and effortlessly current. This is one of my favourites (and so easy to use) – trendy aqua always makes an impact, especially against the palest of pinks, and russet provides a great neutral contrast. It works perfectly with pretty garden wedding details, cupcakes, chandeliers, ruffles and, of course, peonies. (Will I ever get tired of these? Don’t think so!) Just add guests and sunshine for the perfect, laid back, happy day.
Colours: Blue Curacao, Silver Peony, Russet
Top row (l-r): Bridesmaids; peony bouquet; chandeliers
Row 2: Cupcakes, Just Married banner; aqua mason jars; chandelier invitation; aqua shoes
Row 3: Flower girl moustaches; bride & groom; dancing shoes; outside reception.
Real Wedding at Rockhaven Farm {Kyle & Jamie}
There are some weddings where just looking at the photos can instantly brighten up your day, and Kyle & Jamie’s (Kyle being the girl and Jamie the boy!) is definitely one of them. Their flowers are AMAZING. Their venue is one of my all-time favourites (Rockhaven Farm, with its resident dogs, cats and ducks, which we also featured here and here). And the two of them just radiate a sense of calm and joy that has had a smile on my face the whole way through putting this post together. Not to mention the incredible light and detail that photographer Jani B manages to get into her pictures – it’s like taking a big gulp of fresh air on a spring morning. (Oh, and regular readers will also spot the flawless cake and biscuit making of one of our own brides, Roxanne Floquet – how gorgeous is her work?) Love!
Real Wedding at the Steenberg Hotel {Irene & Hans Joachim}
Oh, I do love me a winter wedding! I don’t see nearly as many as I’d like to coming out of South Africa. And yes, I know the Cape is spectacular in the summer, and many of you want an outdoor ceremony and reception, but if you’re just setting out in the planning process it’s worth considering the winter months, as they have their own very special beauty. Today’s wedding is a perfect example of that for me – an elegant couple, rich jewelley colours, and one of my favourite ever bride’s outfits. You have to love a girl who gets married in red boots! Photographs are by the ever wonderful Nikki Meyer – every wedding she photographs is serious eye candy, so make sure you head over to her blog (and make yourself a cup of coffee before you do, because you’ll be there a while!). Big thanks to Nikki and of course to Irene and Hans – congratulations again, you two!Read More