A Modern South African Wedding By Christine Joy Harding

So… This weekend has been pretty special. I went to a proper modern south african wedding in Ipswich. Gosh! I’ve not had so much fun since… errrr forever. We were up on the dance floor to songs such as Brenda Fassie’s vulindlela to Mafikizolo’s buti ngihambanawe. I know to some of you these may seem like ancient songs but when you have my friends on the dance floor the possibility of feeling 19 again is quite real. Haha!. Plus it goes to show that a wedding can be alcohol free and fun. Who needs alcohol anyway right?

The Proposal Story

It was the weekend after my birthday in 2013. Phil booked a holiday at a lodge close to Sun City. We took the trip on Friday after work and got to the lodge very late. I woke up in the morning and wanted to get ready, but couldn’t seem to find the toiletry bag. When I realised he forgot the toiletry bag, I started yelling at him. This made me mad because all the shops were not open at the time and I really wanted to get ready so that I could go and explore Rustenburg before going to Sun City with him. To my surprise, he did not respond to my shouting. I carried on shouting and walked to the bathroom – I can’t even remember what I was looking for then. When I walked out of the bathroom, there was music playing – I didn’t think much of it. I was still shouting at him when I saw a box with a ring on the table. His silence now made sense – he was nervous.

Still unaware that the ring was my engagement ring, I sat down at the table, fastened my shoe laces and as I looked up, Phil was standing next to me with the ring in his hand. In shock, I asked him “What’s going on?” He started telling me that we’d been through so much since we’ve been together and that he wanted me to be his wife. I put on the ring before even saying ‘yes’. I was just so overwhelmed and so happy.

The Planning Process

Wedding planning can be the most stressful time in a relationship but what kept us going was the fact that Phillip and I planned every single detail of our wedding ourselves. We made sure we had a solid budget even before talking to any wedding suppliers.

We both had the same vision for our wedding i.e. keeping things simple yet elegant. We had fun designing our own wedding invite and making souvenirs (which are good cost saving methods). We had our disagreements at times and had sleepless nights but enjoyed the process.

The Creative’/Vendor Selection
We found our suppliers mostly through referrals from our wedding venue, The Venue Hartswater. Finding a venue was the most challenging because the plan was to get married close to my home town Kimberley and we stay in Johannesburg. However, once we laid eyes on the venue we instantly fell inlove with it and they were very helpful and efficient.

We were let down by our photographer during the week leading up to the wedding and again Mareli (at The Venue) came to our rescue and referred us to Christine, who turned out to be the best photographer.

Flava of Culture
We kept our wedding day quite modern and did not incorporate a cultural flair because we were planning to have a second wedding in Phillip’s home town QwaQwa in the Free State and that wedding was mostly traditional Sesotho.

There was however a lot of singing of traditional Sesotho/Setswana wedding songs from our family on the day of our “white wedding”.

Our Wedding In 7 Words

beautiful, elegant, joyful, perfect , filled with love, jubilation and certainly memorable

Most Memorable Moment
The look on my husband’s face when I walked down the aisle. We also had a lot of fun throughout the whole event. We were really not stressed about the logistics of the day and trusted that our wedding coordinators will do a good job.

Advice To Future Brides and Grooms

The actual wedding day is much shorter than the time spent planning it. So have fun and enjoy every moment of your wedding day. Remember it is your day and that day will never come again, so focus on each other more. Your wedding coordinator(s) will make sure that your guests are attended to and that everything you need is sorted.

The Creative’
Photographer: Christine Joy Harding
Venue: The Venue Hartswater
Dress: online store
Make-Up: Norma Kruger
Suits: Teboho Monatisa
Décor/Venue Styling: Nigel Londt
Flowers: Nigel Londt
DJ: Ecstacy Communications

A big thank you to Mo and Phil forvsharing their beautiful modern south african wedding on Pure Wedding Blog.