The Proposal
I surprised Colin on his 30th birthday on the 11 November 2013 with a boat trip and lunch at the V&A Waterfront. Afterwards, we headed to Muizenberg to play putt-putt, one of our favourite pastimes. At the 11th hole I was excited as I was only hitting two shots to sink the ball. Once I got closer to the hole, I noticed a box. As I picked it up, Colin knelt and said he loved me very much and asked if I would be his wife. I said yes but hurriedly as I didn’t want us to hold up the other putt putt players. He managed to sneak a smaller cooler bag with champagne and 2 glasses and by the 12th hole we were toasting and celebrating our engagement.
I hinted on the type of ring I wanted, a white gold princess cut with a single band, by placing jewellery brochures marked with asterisks in his bedroom and it worked. On our first wedding anniversary on 17 January 2016, he surprised me with another wedding band
The Planning
My favourite thing about planning the wedding was shopping and sourcing for the various items and vendors from my first wedding dress, a special moment I got to share with my mom as I’m her only daugther, to material, shoes and accessories.
Colin helped with some aspects of the wedding but my mom was my right hand from accompanying me to bridal expo’s to numerous trips to shopping malls and factory shops.
I stressed that our budget would allow us to tick off our to do lists, guests would show up and that service providers and friends and family offering their services on the day, would not disappoint us.
I had DIY projects like purchasing jumbo clothing pegs and pasting street maps onto it. The pegs would attach the guests’ place cards to their glasses. My friend designed labels for milkshakes and cold drinks using our engagement pics and my mom and I had to attach it to 158 bottles. We bought 70 fans for the ladies and attached ribbon and a thank you card. My mother in law mixed blue and yellow food colouring with water used in our unity ceremony and bought balloons and Chinese lampshades for the ceremony.
Colin and I love visiting places and decided on a travel theme with our colours being mint green and silver. We had boarding pass invites, programmes that resembled a brochure, our wedding cake had a bottom tier with the world map with the bride and groom toppers holding a bikini and suitcase respectively and each table was named after a place we’ve been to as a couple. We requested that our guests not wear green as only our parents, Colin’s grandma, our siblings, my nephew and our bridal party wore it, as well as danced to a song before our first dance. We also designed a sign at the entrance to the venue to guide our guests
Looking Back
I have lots of favourite memories from pulling in at the venue and seeing all the cars to realise how blessed we are to have so many loved one attending; to seeing Colin at the end of the aisle, our fun photo shoot to our first dance which had a twist as we surprised guests with two dances.
My advice would be to see the vendors in action either by word of mouth or at a previous wedding or function. Attend a maximum of two bridal expo’s as you will discover great ideas and meet vendors you never knew existed. Remember the reason why you’re getting married because you might face negativity and stumbling blocks along the way and include your parents as its their day too.
If I could change anything, it would be to use another photo booth operator as I was unhappy with their service on and after the wedding. I know it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride but because our wedding only started at 4pm, I wish we did an earlier photo shoot because we rushed through it after our ceremony and our reception started a bit later. And I regret not staying later as majority of our guests left after we did and did not dance until the DJ packed up.
