Weddingbee Blog

Today we’re featuring the South African nuptials of Leizl and Michael.  This DIY bride was heavily inspired by weddingbee and impressively made all her stationery, her wedding dress, her bridesmaids’ dresses, and even did her own flowers! 

Venue: Ceremony was at Stonehaven on Vaal, Reception aboard “The Spirit of Jen”
Wedding Date: 8 September 2007
Photographer: The uber-talented Andrea Carlyle
Videographer: Marco Dias
Cake: A delicious carrot cake with cream frosting kindly made as a wedding present for us by a talented family friend Lyn Schroder
Honeymoon: We took a 2 week road trip down to Cape Town

The Story

Michael and I have always been a different sort of couple - we met on the internet and got engaged at a Planetarium, so we decided that our wedding needed to be something that matched our personalities.

Now, weddings in South Africa are mostly pretty boring, typical affairs, definitely not as glam and well coordinated as their American counterparts. But I was heavily inspired by Weddingbee and various other wedding sites, so much so that my poor fiance was inundated with ideas on a daily basis!

Our theme became butterflies by default. I am a designer, so I created all the paper collateral myself, and butterflies are a personal symbol for me of growth and new life - which perfectly suited our marriage and celebration of our new life together.

Our ceremony was held on land, alongside of Vaal river, with our reception held aboard “The Spirit of Jen” - a luxury cruiser - along the Vaal river. I’m really pleased with the response from our guests - we wanted them to leave our wedding on a high - and from the comments we have gotten back from them, that is just what they felt! We’ve been told that our wedding was the most different, unusual and unique wedding they have ever been to!

Details wise, we had a candy buffet instead of traditional favors (which may be passé to folks in the US, but to people in SA, it was the newest, most innovative thing they had seen! ha ha)

We had a jukebox instead of a DJ - which worked fantastically, and I would recommend it to anyone. We had sparklers, funny straws and made all of our guests dress up for pictures. All in all, it was the most enjoyable, most memorable day of my life.

The BEST part of the whole day for me, was seeing my new husband’s face as I walked down the aisle, and hearing the guests exclaiming. It was wonderful. But don’t get me wrong, it was also the most tiring and most emotional day of my life. My Mother honored tradition and had a major fight with me that morning (all stress-related) which definitely was not helpful. Fortunately after many tears, we sorted it out, and the day continued without a hitch.

My advice for future brides - in all honesty, the day went by SO fast that it seems a blur. Definitely don’t skimp on photographers or videographers, their work is all you will have to remind yourself of your special day. Also, don’t splurge on a dress - seriously, you only wear it for a few hours. Sure it must look great, but you’ll only wear it once. My dress cost me a grand total of R900 - which is about $130! So  you can still get a reasonably priced dress that looks good. Rather use that money for other things, like great music!

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