Oh you guys. I am SO in love with these photographs, and it’s the perfect way to end a week of wonderful couple shoots. It’s one of those where once you’ve seen the images, you can’t get them out of your head, starting with the first one, which I completely fell for when I saw it on Cheryl McEwan’s blog. Not only are Lylie and Will completely gorgeous and wrapped up in one another, but it makes the place I live now look so magical. Not always easy in a bustling city that has been photographed a thousand different ways! I think it really makes a difference that the locations are all places that mean something to the couple, so even though they’re iconic and very public spots they all feel incredibly personal. (Oh, and the dog… what can I say – Lylie and Will, if your ADORABLE pup goes missing, it was totally me who came and stole her!)
Engagement shoot from New Zealand
I don’t usually feature photographers from outside the UK, since I focus on weddings from in and around the Cape Town area. But when it comes to engagement shoots, there’s no reason why the same limit applies. And so I’m thrilled to be able to show off some talent from abroad – in this case from emerging Kiwi photographer Lavara O’ Hanlon. Lavara contacted me with her pics of this super cute couple against the Auckland skyline, and I just couldn’t resist. They are so adorable together, and there’s so much energy in these pics, I love them! Engagement shoots are a relatively new trend in NZ as they are in South Africa, and as much as I love super styled sessions, this one shows that the most important ingredient is the buzz between the couple themselves.Read More
Real Wedding at Constantia Uitsig {Anne & Simon}
I always know it’s going to be a good day when a wedding arrives in my inbox from The Aleit Group, since the events they design are all phenomenal! I’m especially excited about today’s though, because it’s the first one of their smaller weddings I’ve featured. A huge part of the Cape Town wedding market is made up of couples from overseas having intimate celebrations in our most beautiful of cities, but just because there are fewer guests doesn’t mean the prettiness quotient has to be any lower. In fact, the opposite is often true, and ‘pretty’ is definitely the word that should be used to describe Anne and Simon’s wedding. It has pretty in abundance. Pretty venue. Pretty flowers. Pretty pictures (thanks to the always awesome Joe Dreyer). And a wedding dress that is the definition of pretty. Love that Anne chose to wear something beautiful and unusual – for me it’s the detail that brings everything else together. And I LOVE that the in-case-of-rain Plan B turned out to be even more spectacular than Plan A might have been. Proof yet again that rain on your wedding day doesn’t have to spoil a thing.Read More
Sheet Music Wedding Details
Hot on the heels of the book trend comes another piece of paper awesomeness that you can DIY. Sheet music makes the most gorgeous, subtle accent for just about any kind of wedding – it works perfectly with vintage, adds whimsy to formal and can be used cheekily for a modern celebration if you pick your song sheets wisely. And what better way to celebrate your shared love of music? In fact, who can live without it, I ask in all honesty? (And yes, I totally just quoted ABBA).
My favourites? The boutonniere and the pinwheels, which are small enough to be cupcake toppers and omigod the cutest things EVER. I want them. So here they are, along with some other delicious eye candy that’ll have you hitting the high notes. (Sorry.)
Which are your favourites?
Real Wedding at Forest 44 {Angela & Nick}
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!
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.
Save the Dates & Invitations
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
