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Real SA Wedding: Le'Chelle & Sean

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How we met

We met at church as awkward teens, became best friends and then started dating.  Long story short, we've been together for 8+ years

The engagement

In May 2016, Sean surprised me at one of my favourite places, the Babylonstoren cactus garden (I'm obsessed with plants), when I casually thought I was having brunch with a friend he had other plans. 

He invited our closest friends, my mother, had one of my best friends fly down from Pietermaritzburg and even had my sister and brother in law FaceTimed in from the US to see our engagement.  Let's just say he's a good egg :)

The wedding

Before we started planning we decided to sit down and chat about what we wanted for the day and what we wanted our friends and family to experience. 

Our non-negotiables were to share the love we have for each other and Jesus and generally have a fun day with our closest people. 

For me, choosing Die Woud was simple.

I love being surrounded by nature and the idea of a dark winter wedding just seemed like us, plus Die Woud is just unbelievably beautiful!

Because the forest and greenhouse are so beautiful we wanted to keep things simple and opted to just do flowers and lush greenery instead of having traditional decor. 

Bouwer Flowers did such a wonderful job with our flowers/greenery.  The flowers were the main focus and I absolutely love the way the style carried throughout the ceremony and reception.

We gave cacti and succulents as wedding favours and these were placed among the table garlands which added to the table decor. 

We wanted the reception to feel like a big family gathering so we went for comfort food - burgers with bacon, bree, caramelised onions and fig with sweet potato fries.

For the rest of the night we focused on having a good time, we danced till the last possible moment and true to form we stayed to help clear up and left with our bridal party.

Because Die Woud is about 2hrs outside of Cape Town we thought it would be cool to have a wedding weekend. 

We went up with our wedding party on the Friday, had a braai and did last minute prep, had the wedding on Saturday and then our close friends came over to the house for a big breakfast on Sunday.

All the planning, tears, last-minute cancellations and budget 'chats' were well worth the end goal - marrying my best friend.

Watch the wedding video here:

Photographer: Paige Wood Photography

Videographers: Tawny Fawn Films

Flourist: Bouwer Flowers

Venue: Die Woud

Makeup: Le'Chelle Aldridge

Hair: Hayls Hair

Grooms Suit: Truworths Man

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