our wedding M: decor & dinner

During the wedding planning, I mentioned in a post how each bride has her own personal wedding priorities. Flowers and decor were not high on my list. The hotel was pretty enough as it is, anything else was just a bonus. It's ironic that the florist ended up being one of our biggest expenses. I still don't quite know how that happened?

This was the mock-up of our table centre pieces, done at the florist's studio a month before the wedding. We'd given some vague indication of our likes and dislikes, included some key themes such as 'modern romantic' and this is what we got. We loved it.

On location, it looked like this. Very fresh, modern, not too fussy. Happiness.

At the eleventh hour I decided to splurge on menus to match our invitations. My favourite wedding quote, the one that kept me sane all through the planning process, is printed at the top of the menu.
"I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance, a church filled with flowers, friends and beautiful music. I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for, he said one that would make me his wife."

We were sabotaged by quite a bit of wind on the evening of our wedding, so the hundreds of candles I insisted on, had very little effect at the outdoors dinner!

This is the upper terrace where our poor guests were left to the elements. Luckily some clever ones borrowed my MIL's beautiful quilts that were spread out at the amphitheater to keep warm.

The lower terrace was pretty much completely sheltered. The double doors at the end lead straight onto the dance floor.

Venues always look much better to me when they're peopled!

We only had one table inside, in a room opening onto the terraces from the left, for grandparents and other highly esteemed guests who wanted to be out of the weather. Here MIL and I popped round to meet and greet.

My maternal grandparents, who couldn't attend the wedding because they live far, far away and are a bit fragile for air travel these days, gave me these cut glass vases as part of my inheritance. I put my bouquet and the bridesmaids' in there, right on the dance floor, so Ouma & Oupa Liewie could be there in spirit.

These flamingos are actually part of my sister Ankia's inheritance from the Liewies, and I wanted to use them as my cake topper. Unfortunately the instructions got lost along the way and Werner ended up housing them in the bird cage that was meant for keeping cards from our guests!

I'd almost gone with easy-peasy supermarket cupcakes as wedding cake, but my MIL politely insisted that we get something a bit more special. These were Charly's mucking afazing chocolate cupcakes with white butter cream icing. The best cake ever! Says me, the "I don't really care for cake rather give me a packet of crisps" girl.

And then, the much debated cake topper that did make it to the top of the stand! Some brides have voiced concern at the negative connotations and stereotyping of such novelty figurines. My MIL and I saw it for the first time in RK Bridal in New York and loved it. Maybe it's because in our situation there was certainly no-one dragging anyone else to the chapel, that we could just enjoy the humour of it. Actually, if there'd been a groom dragging the bride, I would've chosen that one for sure!