Rock n Roll Bride - The ultimate guide for alternative brides

South Africa

A Rock n Roll Shoot & Iron Fist Ruby Slippers: Cat & Louis

Kat

January 31, 2012

It started with those ruby slippers. When wedding photographer Kat Forsyth first laid eyes on the Iron Fist beauties, she knew she had to do a photo shoot styled around them. "I’m not even a shoe girl, and I hardly ever wear heels, but hot damn, I wanted everything on the Iron Fist website," Kat wrote. "I couldn’t get the ruby slippers out of my head, so a few weeks later I popped into a shop to see them in person. Well, the only pair left was the display pair, and they were one size too small for me. But they were On Sale. On Sale for one fifth of the original price! So in order to justify the purchase, I decided I would buy them to use in a shoot one day. Photographing them’s just as good as wearing them, right? In fact, better, because it’d be more comfy!"
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An Owl & The Pussycat Themed Wedding: Kerryn & Joel

Kat

January 27, 2012

"The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea. In a beautiful pea green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note..." With The Owl and the Pussycat as inspiration, it would be hard for Kerryn & Joel to go far wrong when planning their cute and quirky wedding. Although the wedding wasn't really 'themed' to match the poem, its message resonated throughout their planning and on the wedding day itself. They used it on their wedding invitations and Kerryn read the poem as part of her speech. "The Owl and The Pussycat popped up because around the time that we got engaged, I read The Owl and The Pussycat to my 3 year old niece, Amy," Kerryn told me. "At the last page there was a lovely illustration of the owl dancing with the pussycat in mid air..."
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A Laid-Back & Family-Central South African Wedding: Daniel & Annette

Kat

January 24, 2012

The beautiful South African wedding of Daniel & Annette was sent over to me by their wedding photographer Bruce of Flyinghorse Photography. Not only do I love the relaxed vibe of this day, but Annette's short powder blue dress is just perfect! The wedding was held at Hillhouse, Dargle and was a huge family occasion, with everybody pitching in to help. "Daniel and I had so much fun planning the wedding, we got a kick out of every little detail and it was our special little project," Annette wrote. "We didn’t want to spend a fortune on the wedding so we decided to do most things ourselves, with a lot of help from our friends and family. We are both not at all into big white weddings we basically just wanted to do the legal/official bit and then have a big party with all our friends and family. Ideally this would’ve involved something like going to Las Vegas with a bunch of friends. However it quickly became pretty clear that the most important people to us won’t be able to join us on such a crazy adventure, and we couldn’t do it without them so we started to look for something a bit closer to home."
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A Quirky Country Diner Wedding (Dinosaurs Welcome): Sam & Stew

Kat

January 19, 2012

What started as an 'in' joke about a love of dinosaurs, ended up being the inspiration for Sam & Stew's wedding, which took place in South Africa last September. "Neither of us can really remember where the dinosaur thing started," Sam explained, "but it is now well and truly an inside family joke - the fact that Stew and I are 'dinosaurs-for-life'. I found the plastic models at Pollocks Toy museum in London, and added the little details to turn them into our very own bridasaurus & groomasaur, cake toppers (by far and away the groom's favourite part of the decor!)"
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Alternative Bridal Fashion by Rag n Bone

Kat

January 5, 2012

Husband and wife team Jaimi & Adrian hail from South Africa and are really pushing the alternative wedding market forward in their country. After styling and shooting a number of rockin' photo shoots and weddings (which I've been lucky enough to feature here and here) the couple decided to take their vision one step further and put together an alternative bridal fashion show as part of a larger wedding fair at Tala Private Game Reserve.
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A Red & Blue Themed South African Beach Wedding: Rupert & Liana

Kat

December 5, 2011

Anyone fancy a South African beach wedding on a chilly Monday morning? All I know is Rupert & Liana's wedding certainly warmed my cockles when it landed in my inbox recently. Their October wedding was inspired by the things they love. Liana loves red and Rupert blue so they wanted this combination to be their wedding theme. They're also both love the beach so of course they had to have their ceremony on the San Lameer Beach, SA.
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A Handmade South African Wedding: Megan & Peiter

Kat

November 10, 2011

South African weddings are blowing me away at the moment. I've been featuring so many beauties from this fabulous country recently, I feel very lucky indeed! Well my luck was very much in when Megan & Peiter's beautiful wedding landed on my lap last week. The wedding was held outdoors at Kleinkaap Pretoria, a boutique hotel in Centurion, Gauteng. "I wanted to do everything!" Megan laughed, "and everything had to have a significant meaning so all my vendors were our families. Everything from the bunting to the match-books we handmade and actually (sorry for the cliché) made with thought, consideration and love. To me the fun part wasn’t only the actual wedding it was getting together with friends, family and a great bottle of wine to stick match-books together."
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A South African Winter Wedding at A Private Game Reserve: Jaimi & Adrian

Kat

September 23, 2011

Jaimi & Adrian are wedding photographers themselves so when it came to planning their own big day the photography was obviously a very important part for them. "Adrian and I met through a photographic project he did back in 2008 and we fell in love," Jaimi told me. "He asked me to marry him on a misty morning in October 2009 in the Drakensburg Kzn. We got married on January 10th, 2010 and had a small ceremony at Tala. We renewed our love for each other and had our wedding celebration on June the 24th this year at our special love place ... Tala Private Game Reserve." "As Adrian has been in the wedding industry for over 12 years now as a wedding photographer. We really wanted our day to be 'us' and a bit more rocker than the weddings we shoot every weekend of the year. We took all the 'stuff' we loved and piled it onto one day - from the clothes we love, to the passion we have to the fun we wanted for our family. It turned out awesome, it was personal, full of love, non stressful and just super rocking."
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A Vintage Themed South African Wedding ‘With a Twist’: Zigi & Warren

Kat

September 19, 2011

Oh South Africa you do have some beautiful light...and how lucky are Zigi & Warren to have had Shanna Jones Photography to capture it so magically? "We wanted a different wedding that represented our style," Zigi told me. "Something that was unique to us as a couple. Warren is into Cars/Bikes & Fashion. I am into Food/Art/design…and unfortunately cars too. We decided to do a Road trip to our destination (this is something we do often & is actually part of our lives). The plan was to do it over 4 days & 3 nights to ensure we really don’t miss anything, but also get the time to spend with the various groups of people. The plan was that the entire group would get to know each other by being in the same town for 3 nights. This would mean on the wedding night we can just hang!! Quite a few of our friends are muscle car collectors – so about 10 cars drove up (where others brought their off-road bikes to go into the mountains)."
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Candice & Dave’s Budget-Friendly, Parisian-Themed Wedding

Kat

May 30, 2011

I'm coming over all Français today, with not one but two real wedding features with a French flavour. The first, Candice & Dave's, took place in South Africa but had a distinctive Parisian infusion. Photographer Jacki Bruniquel explained, "They were on a tight budget and really made the best of what they had and made their wedding 'their own'. They had a Parisian theme running through the day as this is where they got engaged, but through in a bit of local flavour too. Friends pulled in to help and Candice made many of the details herself."
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Arnold & Melissa’s Festive Old World Carnival Wedding

Kat

May 16, 2011

Hold onto your knickers ladies (and gents!) because Arnold & Melissa's South African wedding is gonna make you squeal with delight. "We wanted to keep the wedding personal, real and down to earth," the bride told me. "I am a wedding photographer myself, so I've been to so many weddings that the last thing I wanted was a traditional wedding. We love the outdoors and being out in nature, so we wanted the wedding to be outside, but also in a natural setting. We went to look at Beloftebos and immediately knew it was the right venue."
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Elbie & Derek’s Opulent & Eclectic DIY Wedding

Kat

April 12, 2011

I love Elbie... love love love! She is the hair & make up genius behind many of my photo shoots, including the Mad Hatter Beach Shoot, the Tattoo Revolution magazine shoot and my rainbow hair for the Big Fat Wedding Blogger's Photo Shoot! Elbie is one hell of a cool chick, so when I heard the she was getting married in South Africa this March I pretty much laid claim to blogging her wedding before she'd even had the chance to tell me anything about it!
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Candice & Dave’s Musical Journey

Kat

March 3, 2011

I don't feature a whole load of engagement shoots, preferring to share all the awesome Rock n Roll weddings I get sent. But sometimes, just sometimes, an e-session comes my way that's so rad I just have to share it! "In this engagement shoot I introduce you to my friends Candice & Dave, and take you on a little journey through their life," explains photographer Jacki Bruniquel. "Dave & Cands both play amazing music and are a part of the legendary band Hairlip which is a crazy eighties revival band. Dave also known as Dave McMillan, is well known as a wonderful guitarist, singer and songwriter is his own right. We themed their engagement shoot “A Saturday in the life of Candice & Dave” Starting at their flat where they often hang out and play music, then onto a coffee shop (how cute is this coffee shop?) and finally a local theatre where they often play. They wanted their engagement shoot to be s true representation of them as a couple as opposed to them as musicians so we really mixed it up a bit and had fun."
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Ashley & Jen’s February Beach Wedding

Kat

March 1, 2011

Ashley & Jen were married in the beach at Boesmanland in Langebaan South Africa just last week (gotta love that SA weather huh!?) "Ashley is a surfer so it was inevitable we have the wedding on the beach!" newlywed Jen told me. "We wanted the day to reflect our fun and outgoing personalities. My walking down the aisle song was “White Wedding” by the legendary Billy Idol! Ash and I are the best of friends, we enjoy every minute we spend together and really wanted this to be reflected on the day. We didn’t do any of the traditional things like cut the cake, throw a garter or bouquet (this uses up very important dancing time!) and our guest book was a custom made surf board made by the awesome Ian from Blank Boards. Most of the details were made by ourselves which we really enjoyed as it added our personal touch to the day! I didn’t want flowers, how sad that they are beautiful and fresh the 1 day and dead the next? My bouquet was inspired to my beautiful fur-kid, Holly, who passed away, rest in peace Mommy’s baby! I religiously read wedding blogs for a year to get loads of ideas but add our own twist, thank goodness for the world wide web, especially the rocking Kat at Rock n Roll Bride!"
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Marzaan & Joe’s Beautiful South African Wedding

Kat

December 22, 2010

I was sent Marzaan & Joe's wedding quite a while ago now by their fabulous photographer's We Love Pictures and I couldn't hold off posting any longer! Joe is a South African rugby player, so understandably the couple are quite busy so I unfortunately don't have much info on this wedding for you. However I'm sure you'll agree that seeing the photos on their own, even without all the wedding info, is totally worth it.
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Casey & Richard’s Sunny, Seaside, Sailor Wedding

Kat

December 3, 2010

My original plan today was to head out into my garden and take some snowy snaps for Photography Friday...however as I stared blankly through my kitchen window I had second thoughts and realised that it's flippin' COLD out there and you know what!? I'd rather stay here, wrapped in my slanket (blanket with sleeves - oh yes that is Rock n Roll!) For some further justification, I've got an amazingly SUNNY wedding from South Africa to share instead. This should warm your cockles...
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Jeanie & Mike’s Dorky & Eclectic South African Wedding

Kat

December 1, 2010

Jeanie & Mike got hitched at the end of October at Old Oak Manor & Cafe Felix in Riebeek Kasteel, South Africa. The wedding had a thrown together, eclectic vibe inspired by the couple themselves. "I don't know if I can classify myself as Rock n Roll, but definitely different and also somewhat dorky", explained the bride. "I think we usually do most things different than the norm and we also have a lot of fun doing it. God is always my inspiration, in fact, he gave me the idea to create a coat of arms for my new family and I used it on the invitation and all the other stationary." Jeanie has even since decided to go into business creating wedding stationary!
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