We’re sent hundreds real weddings every month to consider for publication so I’m sure you can imagine it’s quite hard to narrow them down sometimes… However there was no question in our minds when we clapped eyes on Alexa and Andries’ two day celebration in South Africa.

They decided to split the wedding in two, with an intimate church ceremony for just close family and a big reception for everybody else three days later, in order to keep both of them happy. “I think the fact that we split our wedding into two parts definitely made it a hard pill to swallow for some people”, began the bride. “In South Africa there is still a lot of very conservative ideas when it comes to weddings. The idea to split it over two days actually happened, because my husband and I had two different ideas of what we wanted for the wedding. I wanted something super intimate, more like an elopement, whereas he felt that we would regret it one day if we didn’t share this day with all of our friends and family.”

“The ceremony was super intimate and held at an old farm church in the town where I grew up. Only our parents, siblings and grandparents attended. Although, one bridesmaid did party crash (but she took videos, so we weren’t too angry!) The band and minister are also special people to us. I have known them since I was a little girl.”

The reception was held three days later where the bride wore a completely GORGEOUS one-of-a-kind dress that was handmade for her by her mother. “This was the day that I wore my wedding dress, and our wedding party got ready with us. However, instead of a ceremony we did a first-look, and instead of the bouquet toss we hit a piñata on the dance floor!”

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