Wow just after telling you all how grateful I am for your support and following my blog, I abandon you for an entire month! I am so very sorry! But I do have a very, very good excuse – we got married!! March was absolute chaos month, with tons of preparations, trying to get as much work done as possible so I could take off for the festivities, spending time with amazing visitors and of course the big day (well weekend in our case)!
After getting back from my super brief America trip, it was then Ellery’s turn to travel. He had to go to Zambia for two weeks for his work and so I was left to hold down the fort at home. I did manage a quick trip up to Joburg during this time for my final wedding dress fitting and to bring my dress back with me. Sig the terror child, joined on the trip and had a great time overnighting at Kelly’s playing with her puppy, Finn. Once back home, the whirlwind really started all up. I did not realise how many appointments and such I had leading up to the wedding – hair colour, getting my eyebrows done because my sad eyebrows are very much a product of the 2000’s style of overplucking into thin lines, and oddly enough I had my face shaved! Haha it is called dermaplanning or something along those lines and basically, they shave your whole entire face of all it’s little peach fuzz to make it smoother for your wedding make-up application. I had no idea that was a thing but was pretty impressed how smooth my face felt after. So yeah, that happened. I also had lots of last minute decorations to make for the wedding since we decided to do all of the planning and decorating ourselves.
Around the 19th our families started arriving. Mom and Kiara flew in from the Western Cape and on the 20th my dad, Colleen and Aunt Sandy arrived all the way from the states! The Pollards also flew back from Zambia to pack the rest of their things and come celebrate with us. Ellery’s mates also drove down from Joburg on the 19th to take him out for a stag party in town. Ellery then drove up to Hoedspruit to pick up the kids as well! We has such a gloriously full house and it made my heart so happy!! We also got some very exciting news, Ellery’s oldest son, Cole, is going to be living with us full time from now on! Cole has been wanting to live with us for a few years now and he finally got the go ahead! So amongst all the wedding fun, we also had to organise him transferring schools to Nelpsruit High School. It is so great to have him here with us!
On the 20th, Ellery, mom, Kiara and I headed to Home Affairs to do the official paperwork and marriage license.
On the 21st, we packed up the cars and headed to the venue, Badfontein Game Farm. We choose to make it a whole weekend of festivities since we sadly do not get to see most of our friends and families often and this was the first time we had almost all of our people together. Of course we wanted to spend as much time with everyone as possible! The venue was absolutely stunning! Badfontein Game Farm is a working farm just below Kewna Dam in the Lydenburg area. They have accommodation there on the farm so everyone could stay right at the venue for the whole weekend, enjoy the bush, fishing in the dams and hiking on the trails.
When we arrived we had to offload the vehicles and begin setting up all the decorations in the reception hall. Kelly is one of the most wedding-organised humans I know and helped me copy her wedding binder into an all things Worth Wedding guide which made set up super easy as everyone could just reference what page they needed in the binder and go to work. We chose to use the natural bush as much of our décor as possible, pulling in elements such a raptor feathers from the Dullstroom Raptor Centre, porcupine quills that I collected throughout my travels and from the farm, as well as grasses and lots of greenery.
We checked out the ceremony spot along the banks of the Crocodile River for a quick run through of the ceremony because let’s be honest, I had no idea where I needed to stand or do for it. Back at the main venue Drew manned the braais and we popped some homemade lasagnas into the self-catering ovens that Zoe had made and finally got to sit down and enjoy a meal with everyone. My dad and Sandy brought through some American marshmallows and real graham crackers. The kids had so much fun making s’mores for everyone and probably ate entirely too much marshmallows in the process, but they were having a blast all playing together and running around. It was really such an incredible evening chatting and catching up.
On the 22nd our big day was finally here!! Ellery and I chatted over our last morning coffees before becoming man and wife how our hearts were full having such amazing people there with us. We truly are so lucky for everyone in our lives. Really you could not find a better group of people anywhere. We love you all so much! Shandin from Olive Block arrived around 6am to start hair and makeup for all of the bridesmaids. I have known Shandin for somewhere around eight years now, she is incredibly talented in her work but also so much fun to hang out with! I initially thought that each of the girls would come through the bridal suite, Mooi Nooi, just for their appointment time and then head back up to the deck to hang out for the day, but we all had so much fun together that we all pretty much stayed in the bridal suite the entire morning as everyone got ready sipping mimosas, laughing to the point of tears trying to figure out how the heck to use boob tape, and just sharing stories and good times. I do not have many girl friends, but I can say without a doubt that the ones I do have are the best! It meant more than I can put to words to have Zoe, Kelly, Jo, Kiara and Schotia with me that day. I think Schotia also had a blast hanging out with the ladies and getting ready, she looked like an absolute princess in her dress with her hair done up in a leafy crown! She helped Kelly to make the bouquets and was our number one model when Vossie came down for get ready photos. On another note – I am also grateful to Vossie and Kiara for being our photographers and capturing the whole weekend into wonderful memories and beautiful photographs!
The guys had a more chill morning (seriously, all they had to do was put on clothes), the boys went fishing and they all hung out until it was their time to go down to Ramkamp (the groomsmen get-ready spot in the bush), where they shared some nice whiskey waiting for the guests to all arrive at the ceremony location.
Before I knew it, I was climbing into my dress and we were heading down to the awaiting game viewer to take us to the riverside ‘church’, Boskerk. The guests took their seats to Storybook Love from the Princess Bride and the guys rocked out down the aisle to Dire Straights – Money for Nothing. The ringbearers, Donnacha and Mason, and bridesmaids all walked down the aisle to Concerning Hobbits from the Lord of the Rings. I wase honoured to have my dad come out all the way from America for the first time to walk me down the aisle. We walked down to the Jurassic Park Theme song (which I was super chuffed about). Ellery had the most beautiful vows and there was not a dry eye (especially from me) as I blubbered my way through vows to the kids.
Ellery, Cole, Orion, Schotia and I each had a puzzle piece with our names on them that we put together into a ring as we joined as one family as part of a unity ceremony. With the exchanging of the rings and kiss to seal the deal we were finally married! Everyone moved across a bridge to a small island in the centre of the Croc River to the Cantina Song from Star Wars (now my nerdom is complete) where we enjoyed drinks and delicious canapes.
Kelly’s mom, Michelle, is an incredible cake artist and she made our idea come to life with the most incredible pangolin cake ever!! You could see how much time and love she put into each of the hand airbrushed 152 scales made from fondant. It was beyond our expectations and definitely the star of the canapes!
The bridal party loaded in the game viewer and drove out into the bush for some more photographs (I am still waiting on those but will post as soon as they are ready!)
As the sun began to set everyone made their ways back to the main venue area for the reception.
Kiara blessed us in the most incredible blessing ceremony, bringing in all the elements of nature and preformed an incredibly intricate and gorgeous fire dance in our honour (she is amazing!).
Mother nature joined in the blessing ceremony bringing a soft, light rain towards the end of Kiara’s show and by the time everyone had made it back inside the heavens opened up into an incredible downpour lasting only around 15 minutes, but it was glorious! Everyone had such a great time dancing the night away thanks to our wonderful DJs from Colourful Events.
I know I am biased, but it really was the best wedding ever! We had so much fun and it was incredible to celebrate with so many amazing people! A huge, huge thank you to everyone that came out, helped decorate, helped cooked meals and just helped to celebrate the most perfect weekend!! ❤ We love you! There were definitely a lot of people that were not there, and we would have loved to have had you there, but we know you were there in spirit, and we also thank you for your love!!!
This post is getting quite long and I really need to get back to work, so I will have to share our little safari adventure after the wedding in my next one and then I promise I will get back to my weekly updates again! Thank you for reading along and I hope you enjoyed the photos!
Venue – Badfontein Game Farm
Photography – Johann ‘Vossie’ Vorster and Kiara Worth
Hair & Make Up – Olive Block (Shandin)
Dress – Bridal Alchemy
Cake – Cake Dreama
DJ – Colourful Events
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