Hello lovelies! Looking out of my office window (into my GARDEN! How cool is that?) all I can see is a beautiful mess of autumn leaves all over the lawn, but today’s wedding just smacks of freshness and sunshine and the summer sun. I haven’t had many breakfast weddings on Cap Classique yet (although it’s actually a trend I’m looking at right now for a friend), but if I had to dream one up, I couldn’t make it more perfect than this one. Louise and Clive planned their big day at Rickety Bridge all the way from Australia in just five months, which is quite an achievement in my book! They kept it simple, but all the elements of Extreme Pretty are there: bright white linens in a white marquee, fresh lemons and lavender, pretty country flowers, a ruffly dress (adore this one, by the way). It makes me want to stand up and burst into a rousing rendition of Morning has Broken. (I won’t, lucky for you.) Instead, I’ll let you sit back and enjoy the loveliness, courtesy of one of my favourite photographers, Ms Monica Dart.

From the lovely Louise:
Clive and I met five years ago when we both worked in IT at a bank in Johannesburg. We were friends for a long time and had lots of fun and laughs at work going on long lunches and getting coffees at every opportunity. We were then both given the opportunity to move over to Sydney for work in 2008. We had three weeks to pack everything up and we moved to the closest place we could find to the sea, which was a dream come true. Clive loves surfing and I am learning too, so being near the sea is just amazing. On driving back from church one Sunday we were just chatting about marriage and life in general. And looked at each other and at the same time said we should so get married and do it!

We were engaged in November 2009 with a wedding date in April 2010. That gave me five months to plan everything – from Australia! This was a real challenge, as it is nine hours behind SA, which meant I could only call and make plans at night, but everyone was very professional and accommodating. We arranged everything via email and phone calls and flew to Cape Town a week before the wedding to meet everyone. I flew with my wedding dress squashed into a Qantas airline cupboard – luckily the style was okay with a little creasing! Then on to Mango, who have no cupboards, so the dress was laid over luggage in the overhead lockers! What a week: we arrived on a Monday, met our lawyer on the Tuesday to sign the ANC, then met Monica, our amazing photographer at lunchtime to talk through photos and ceremony. She put me at ease straight away and I felt really organised with a ceremony plan which Monica helped with. The next day I met Joleta for a hair trial in Hermanus – she also put me at ease with her great MAC makeup bag which had everything in it! That afternoon we drove to Franschhoek to meet Odette at Rickety Bridge to talk over the menu and taste the food. On the Thursday we met our minister, Gavin, in Pringle Bay and then on Friday I met our florist, Nadine, in Grabouw while Clive organised speakers and power cables for music and gave his nephews a crash course in DJing with an iPod. Then back to Rickety Bridge in Franschhoek to meet family and friends, ready for our ceremony at 10am the next morning!

We decided we wanted a champagne breakfast wedding, with morning sun and lots of light, with the mountains and vineyard in the background. Rickety Bridge was the perfect place, with such an amazing view, beautiful lavender bushes and vineyards. Our colours were white and green with yellow accents. The flowers were all Nadia’s idea – I only specified country-style, natural flowers and lots of white and accents of green. We had orchids on the table and fynbos topiary hearts on the chairs with yellow ribbons.

So many small things made the wedding special for us, from staying in the beautiful Cape Dutch Manor house the night before, to having all my family at the wedding- they drove down from Joburg, flew down from Durban and one of my best friends flew out all the way from the UK to be there. Our ceremony was very special, and was conducted by my brother’s minister. My mom and aunt made the wedding cake as a surprise and wrapped each piece in boxes with ribbons without me knowing. My brother, who is in advertising, also put together and printed the table settings and names – he acted as our MC, which was lovely, as he has a great sense of humour.

In the evening after the wedding celebration, we met friends who had made the trip and all watched the sun set over the Franschhoek Valley with a glass of great South African shiraz. The sunset was blazing red and orange and it was a perfect way to end the day.

My advice is to find the venue first. I wish someone had told me about selecting colour palettes or the huge number of inspiration boards on the internet. I wish I had known about all the amazing wedding blogs out there, like Cap Classique! ;) 

Big thank yous to Louise and Clive for allowing me to share their beautiful day. And big hugs to Moni for sharing the pics – thanks my dear! You can, of course, see more of the awesome on her blog.

Service providers:

Venue & catering: Rickety Bridge
Minister: Gavin Graham
Photography: Monica Dart
Florist & decor: 4 every event
Stationery: By Invitation (Monique Mann)
Bride’s dress: Halo Australia
Hair & makeup: Joleta Keane