As a friday treat; i've asked my little sister, from her amazing new blog - Blacksheep, to write a guest post for me about her experience about our wedding in january.  this is the best thing i have ever read.  and it was so nice to hear this from someone else, rather than just seeing & remembering things from my perspective. have a FANTASTIC weekend & friday! ENJOY!!

My lovely Sister asked me to do a guest post about her wedding and how I experienced it from the beginning to the end, and I can honestly say that I have no idea where to begin! There’s just too much to write about, I would be able to write a 600 page book about her wedding’s before, during and after!

I think I’ll start with just after Wayne had proposed to her...
Man was she excited! She immediately started gathering ideas for the wedding, she compiled a book with pictures of her favourite ideas! The colour scheme she went for in the beginning was, light yellow and turquoise. But that quickly changed after she confirmed the colours with Wayne. He wanted red with the turquoise. I must say, it was the best decision ever! The colours looked amazing together and it included both her favourite colour and Wayne’s!

Last year around February, Stephanie and Wayne came to visit us here in South Africa to choose a venue. There was much arguing about where in South Africa they should look for a venue, first it was decided in Cape Town, but that was quickly changed to near home, in the Groblersdal area. We looked at a few venues, but couldn’t find exactly what they were looking for. It was decided, to be held in Pretoria, but now to find a venue... Stephanie and my parents went Venue shopping (if you can call it that). And, they found the perfect place in Centurion, Pretoria called Kleinkaap. It really and truly was a wonderful venue and fitted perfectly with her ideas for the wedding!

It was very difficult for my sister to plan every little thing for her wedding, held in South Africa, when she sat in London England! I don’t know how she did it, but the end product was the most beautiful ever!  And I think she drove Wayne mad, with all her ideas, planning and wedding talk, but I think he now knows that it was worth everything, because the wedding was unforgettable!

I was excited about this wedding from the very beginning, I just knew it was going to be very special and so very creative! (I actually think Stephanie went in to the wrong direction of work and study, she would’ve been an amazing Creative Designer!!) The first creative taste we got from the wedding was the “save the dates”. It was a card saying that they are getting married with a red balloon attached, and when it’s blown up the date and their names was written on the balloon, it was so adorable! (Below wayne helping with the save the dates).

Next up was the Invitations, Stephanie spend months making it (oh, and everything for the wedding was handmade, by Stephanie herself and the family). I was so excited when my Invitation came in the mail! She used an old book she bought (each one unique & handpicked at second-hand stores) and hollowed it out, at the back she wrote some of her favourite quotes, one in each book. Inside was the information needed for the wedding on cute and beautiful cards! It’s actually better to show you than to describe it:

This Invitation made me more excited for the wedding than I was before!

Stephanie and Wayne arrived at the airport the 24 of December 2010, a few days before their wedding, and there was still a lot of work to be done. She had loads of shopping to do. Wayne stayed with his family from the 24th until the 30th, he then joined us in Groblersdal just before the wedding. Stephanie was constantly busy with wedding stuff, she never once went to bed before 00:00 at night. I folded origami cranes for the wedding, Stephanie and my other 2 sisters made flowers out of wire, felt, and buttons for the men as shoulder boutonniere and my mom helped Stephanie with making flowers out of different material for decorations. Wayne helped with the frames that were placed on each table for a menu and well as the one on the candy table. We also went candy shopping, bowl and props shopping, for the candy table and for the photo booth.  I had so much fun helping out, it’s probably the only wedding that was fun to prepare for! There was so much detail in every little thing for this wedding!

I started work again on the 3^rd of January, and the 4^th Stephanie and Wayne came to Pretoria to see the people from the venue, the flower and decorations lady as well as going for their pre-wedding photo-shoot! I took a day off work to spend it with them both! I had so much fun, and their photographer  was Amazing!!  Here are a few shots from their pre-wedding photo-shoot at Sammy Marks Museum:

I was so excited for the wedding! They got married on the 10^th of January on a Monday at 16:30. My parents including Stephanie and Wayne came to fetch my sister and I at our home in Pretoria on Monday morning at 08:30 to go to the venue with them. The venue prepared a room for Wayne and his best man to get dressed in, and they prepared a room for Stephanie and her sisters, mother-in-law, and mother to get dressed. This was so exciting, we all starting scurrying around preparing for the wedding, hair curlers, toenails being painted, make-up being done, running after my sisters little daughter, it probably looked like madness for the men who will see us running in and out of the room, make-up half done, wet hair... can only imagine what went through their minds. In fact Stephanie looked as relaxed as can be, she sat drinking some champagne with curlers in her hair, painting my sister Heleen’s toenails. I think my other sister, Karlien was more stressed than she was, and she wasn’t even the one getting married! Well, I had a blast!

There were some last minute table preparations to be done, because the whole wedding would’ve been outside, but it rained for 4-5 days and it looked a little over-cast, so Stephanie decided to move the tables from the outside to inside. It looked even better inside than outdoors. We also had to set up the candy table and the photo booth before the wedding started. The photographers was so impressed and surprised by all the detail that went into the wedding and the decorating, they had a blast taking photos, especially the candy table!


Just before we had to get ready to walk down the aisle, Stephanie didn’t even have her dress on, the photographer was waiting to take a few shots of her. Katinka didn’t have a dress on yet, and neither did my mom. Heleen was missing in action, she was probably with her boyfriend Mario where the men stood and waited. Wayne looked adorable and awesome in his red all stars and bow tie!  I had to get Stephanie in her dress while my mom dress Katinka who cried the whole time, because she had to where a tutu. I think the photographer laughed at my reaction when I had to button up all Stephanie’s dress, sooo many buttons!!

The photographer got her chance to finally take some pictures of Stephanie before she had to walk down the aisle and her shoes... and mine. :)


Walking down the aisle was probably the only thing about the wedding I didn’t like, I hate attention on myself, I hate the way people stare. The person who hates it more than me is my dad, but he handled it pretty well this time. He was so sweet! He said that the Stephanie had a calming effect on him, that is the reason why he wasn’t that stressed about giving Stephanie away.  The church part of the wedding was amazing, and funny, and beautiful. Stephanie and Wayne’s vows to each other were my favourite part! They wrote them themselves.  My mom and Wayne’s mom had a chance to read 2 of Stephanie’s favourite poems! That was so special.
Katinka drove us mad, but she’s just so cute, she made turns sitting on everyone’s lap in the first row. When it came to the confetti (this was popcorn in cone shaped paper) Katinka was hilarious with this, when her popcorn fell out of the cone, she would pick it up, the more she goes down to pick it up the more popcorn fell from her cone, then she finally gave up and ate the popcorn! So adorable!


After the ceremony, we all got Pimms cocktails (with stripy paper straws) and there was waiters walking around with bowls of biltong (beef-jerky), this is wayne’s favourite south african snack - and shame he didn’t even get to have any; since they were busy with their couples photos. The cocktails were delicious! We had a chance to greet the family and talk to everyone while Stephanie and Wayne was busy with the photographer taking photos, usually it’s a very long and boring waiting period, but they were pretty quick and in a jiffy we all gathered in the hall to sit at our tables. There was a few speeches, not that many though, but they were so beautiful and meaningful. Stephanie’s speech to Wayne and Wayne’s to Stephanie was beautiful, almost made me cry.

The food was so yummy, and I ate so much that I didn’t even want to look at the dessert table! Everything went by so fast! We had a little time to take photos in the photo booth and write messages for Stephanie and Wayne on chalk boards! I loved that I idea, there were props we could use to make silly photos and we worried in the beginning that nobody would actually use it or go to the photo booth, but it was a huge success, we struggled to keep the people away from there and struggled to get everyone inside so that Stephanie and Wayne could open the dance floor with their first dance.

Ohhh, and the first dance was so pretty, they gave out sparklers so that when they dance you can wave it in the air and sway to the music! Another favourite of mine.  Well, actually the whole wedding was my favourite part! It was so wonderful to spend time with the family and get to know Wayne’s family as well. We really had an amazing time, we didn’t even got the chance to eat the cupcakes which was their wedding cake! Can’t believe the time flew so fast! I wanted the night to keep on going! It was truly the most relaxing, wonderful, creative, amazing wedding I’ve ever been to, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my sister and this is her blog, but it was absolutely magnificent!

They are the most beautiful loving couple I’ve ever seen, and they look amazing together! In every single photo you can actually see the love they have for each other! And I still wish them the most happiness in the world, for they deserve every bit of it!


I love you guys so much!  I had a wonderful time at your wedding, hope you’ll consider re-marrying again soon! :) Janine xx