When I’m presented with a wedding where the bride rocks lace mouse ears, carries a rainbow lollipop in place of a bouquet, and her bridesmaids wear adorable little antler headbands, it’s going to be pretty much impossible for me to turn down featuring it. Have you ever seen so much cuteness all in one place?! The wedding took place at Rockhaven Farm in South Africa.
“Right from the start we wanted everyone to be relaxed and to have fun, and this idea influenced all the decisions we made for the wedding”, wrote the bride. “We had no seating plan, we had popcorn for guests to snack on during the reception, and the food was canapés served throughout the evening,. We wanted people to be free to move around and talk to more than the people sitting on either side of themselves.”
There theme was very eclectic and mis-matched. “Initially, we wanted a retro-inspired theme, but it turned out to be very difficult to source the decorations we wanted”, she continued. “One day we happened upon some plastic dinosaurs which we absolutely loved, and it all sort of snowballed from there into a bit of a dinosaur themed wedding! All of the reception décor was DIY including the bunting, paper cranes and gold dinosaurs. Our ceremony program was also homemade. They were paper aeroplanes which people threw instead of confetti as we left the ceremony. The menus were little paper fortunes.”
“Doing lots of DIY was great but it was a bit stressful”, she said. “We were reminded that while it’s wonderful to have the venue full of decorations, people (including the bride and groom) only really pay attention to them for the first half hour, and then everyone is too busy talking, eating and dancing to notice. However by doing things ourselves we did save lots of money. The amount we would have needed to spend on hiring or buying everything would have been INCREDIBLY expensive!”
“Our advice to other couples would be to start the planning early”, she concluded. “We had a long engagement and had every intention to do a little every month so that we would have everything sorted and be super relaxed by the time the day arrived… but it really did not happen that way. You really need to MAKE time to do a little bit each day, week or even month. Don’t just say you will, actually do it!”
