Marie Antoinette Rehearsal Dinner

So. I’ve written this introduction six times, and I keep going back and deleting the whole thing. Because, basically, I seem to have run out of words to tell you how thrilled I am with this feature. It’s a first – we’ve never done rehearsal dinners before – but it’s also completely unique AND it comes from one of our very own Real Life Brides. That’s right – Candice is a married woman, and she’s back to share a couple of pre-wedding events before we do the big reveal of the Big Day. For those of you who have followed along, Candice is our Marie Antoinette bride – she and fiancé Justin were in love with and inspired by everything to do with Versailles. They even found the perfect venue, Casa Labia in Cape Town, but unfortunately had to change plans when they realised it was too small for their party. Now, most people would just give it up, maybe go back for an anniversary, but not these two. Instead, they decided to kick off their wedding celebrations with a rehearsal dinner at the venue (read the whole story here). And they dressed up for it in custom made period costume. And they did a couple shoot beforehand. AND Candice wore an exquisite lace dress she bought from Etsy. AND they got Catherine Mac (whose photos make me covet every one of her weddings) to be there with her camera. You guys, it’s pretty much a wedding blogger’s dream, and this isn’t even the wedding! So sit back and enjoy every inspirational image – with more to come from Candice very soon. (Oh and psssst, you can see more of Catherine’s lovely pics over on her blog.)Read More

Let Them Eat Wedding Cake #8: The Rehearsal Dinner

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.

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