On this beautiful Spring day, we bring you the delightful wedding of Dawid and Franchette. The two said their vows at the bride’s parents’ home in Stellenbosch. How incredibly special to have this joyous occasion at home.

The bride was the epitome of elegance in her ivory strapless gown with side swept hair and garden rose bouquet. The guests feasted outside on the most delicious cheeses, preserves and breads prepared by Anita from Oemf.

The long tables looked inviting and echoed the bride’s love for beautiful things.

Peartree Photography was there to capture their special day.

Tell us your love story..

I love our story. We met on a outreach and fell in love with each other. We decided to stay friends for the six months Dawid was still at varsity and started dating when he left to go and work in East London. Dawid told me we would be married the day we started dating. We had a long distance 1 year and a half and got married the December, two years after we started dating.

In July, before we married, Dawid welcomed me back after a holiday with my sister, with a sincere picnic in a vineyard on a friends farm. We had time to chat and as it was getting late I was blindfolded to a second mysterious date. We headed to the forest, where a fire, a couch and supper was already waiting. We spent some time and Dawid continued the night with a third surprise. We packed up and left for home, with me blindfolded, I was taken home to my room filled with 500 helium balloons! I found Dawid inside the balloons where he proposed! We celebrated afterward with some friends and champagne!

What were the highlights of your wedding day?

It was special to break away from all the excitement for the couple shoot. We could just relax and chat about the ceremony! And off course the flashmob in Dawid’s speech.

Any advice for brides-to-be?

Please share the planning and the preparation with as many friends and family as you can! People love being involved in such a personal day and its a great blessing to have all the helping hands! I would also recommend having a videographer of any sort, we love watching our wedding video.

Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently?

Looking back I would definitely have wanted to start off the day much earlier to stretch out the day. It went by in a flash!

Did anything unexpected happen?

Yes! My very unpredictable and fun fiance had arranged real bunnies to entertain the guests as a surprise and at the reception all the men jumped up and started singing a rehearsed song with Dawid to end off his speech. It was great.

Where did you get most of your ideas and inspiration from?

I found most of my inspiration by browsing on blogs, such as Style Me Pretty and The Pretty Blog, in magazines, and browsing shop windows. I also found many things at Kamers Vol Geskenke, which has many ideas to work with.

What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome while organising your dream wedding?

The biggest obstacle was setting up the guest list. We would have loved to invite everyone! It worked out perfectly in the end! Having the wedding at our home in Stellenbosch limited the amount of guests we could accommodate.

Any time saving or organising tips?

Just choose one and move on! It seems like brides tend to change their minds quite often! It saves a lot of time to tick something of on your list and move on to the next thing.

Any hints for other brides on how to keep your wedding budget friendly?

To keep our wedding budget friendly, we chose friends and family to help out with the special day. To cut costs we did our own stationery. My mother and some friends helped to do the flowers and set the tables the day before. Most of the flowers were Garden Roses that my mother had picked during the week. We had no venue costs, which was a great way to save costs although we had to hire in all the decor. It was very personal to have it at home. Many off the vendors were friends or family, which mostly had rates to accommodate friends.

Did your wedding preparations include any DIY projects?

We had quite a few DIY projects which included the whole family. We glued little welcome flags to glass Coke bottles at the reception and at the tables we had little bunny brooches that we had cut from perspex. We pinned the bunnies to personalized name cards at the tables. We found an old tree, which my brother painted white. We stuck it in a old wine barrel and let the table settings hang from it with ribbons.