Southern Weddings

Friends, there’s a reason why we have a “Details” feature here on Southern Weddings, and I’m pretty sure that reason looks a HECK of a lot like Estelle + Pieter’s wedding.  I’ve got three posts devoted to their soiree today, and each one is chock. full. of details.  Seriously.  Not a filler portrait to be seen (though the ones we did include are stunning, thanks to talented photographer Christine Meintjes!).  So though this wedding comes to us from the South of Africa instead of the South of the United States, there are SO many ideas to inspire in this wedding.  More soon!

P.S. Estelle’s dress + her bridesmaids’ dresses (both designed by Teresa Joubert)!  The bride’s Queen Victoria-inspired riding boots!  The ceremony seating + fans + umbrellas!  I DIE.

How did the two of you meet?  Tell us your story.  We met the first time at church in September of 2007, but the real meeting took place in December.
On the Thursday before my summer holiday to visit a friend in Pringlebay, I impulsively decided to visit a friend of mine at Pringlebay, a small Cape coastal village. That Saturday morning, I found out that three friends from Johannesburg would be joining us for the weekend.

I remember walking down the stairs and seeing this blue-eyed, “bushy-tailed” guy standing in the living room. We were once again introduced and the rest is history.  The planned weekend getaway turned out into an unplanned five day road trip along the coast. We swam in the sea, played beach bats, danced, laughed, went wakeboarding and stargazing, and, in the process, fell hopelessly in love with each other!

After five days, we returned to our families at their respective holiday houses along the coast, but the friendship and fun didn’t stop there. Pieter visited me almost everyday of the holidays and we both knew that life was never going to be the same again!

Describe the proposal:  For the next year, Pieter and I lived apart from one another, but the distance couldn’t kill the love.  After a year of flying between the two cities, hours of telephone conversations and countless emails, he asked me to marry him at my family’s beach house.  I knew he wanted to ask me to marry him since we already had the ring designed and made, but the time he took to pop the question was something!  He first needed to ask my father’s blessing, but he didn’t realize what a mission it would be to get my dad alone over a family holiday! He tried everything to make an “unofficial appointment” with him, but it never worked. In the end, he decided to ask my dad in our kitchen after dinner the one night while the rest of us were watching television! (He had a very hard time, because both my brothers and their wives expected something, so they kept interrupting his conversation!) The whole appointment with my dad stressed him so much that he actually forgot to plan something for the proposal! Luckily, my sister-in-law was there to help. She got him the number of a place where we could go horse riding (my favorite thing in the world!) and they organized to pack a picnic breakfast for us and to hide it somewhere along our road. The appointed morning came and everything went according plan.  We celebrated the engagement with family dinner’s and cocktail parties for three consecutive days!