Hooray Weddings is based in Durban KZN, and one of the things that we love about our city is the lush greenery that surrounds us. Palm leaves and banana trees are something that all Durbanites will be familiar with and make us feel at home. It is this that attracted us to Louise and Jono’s tropical inspired KZN wedding held at Maroupi Wedding venue in Umhlali – on the North coast of Durban. With locally foraged foliage hanging from the ceiling beams, I’m sure the guests at their wedding felt like they were dining in a tropical paradise. Michigan of Vanilla Photography certainly allows us to feel like we were right there with them through her beautiful imagery. Yay Durban!
Louise had a last minute dress crisis and weather that had her worrying all night, but she tells us a little about how she kept her spirits up and what kept her grounded during the planning process of a short engagement.
Alright, enough from us….enjoy and be tropically inspired.
HOORAY: Tell us about what the best spent money was on?
LOUISE: Our food. The Delish Sisters were absolutely incredible! We wanted to have a very casual (but delicious) harvest table spread. We did a tasting with the girls at their gorgeous little spot at the Litchi Orchard in Salt Rock and were able to come up with a variety of different colours and flavours, making our harvest table not only taste amazing, but look really fresh and fantastic too.
HOORAY: What was the coolest idea you guys executed?
LOUISE: Our arch! I’ve always loved the idea of a flowery arch to get married under. My sister in law’s super talented brother Dierk Van Helt offered to help us make one, so we set off on the weekends to forage in the cane fields for wood and then slowly put it together over the months before the wedding. The logs were all natural (just a bit of oil on them to make sure they didn’t rot) and we literally drilled the pieces together, with a few pieces of wood in the corners to help it balance. The lovely ladies from Adore Weddings then covered it with gorgeous flowers and tropical leaves.
HOORAY: What are people still taking about?
LOUISE: dress! The reason I say this is because my dress making experience was actually quite a nightmare and everyone who knows me has heard the terrible stories! In short, my initial dress-maker did not turn out as expected, which left me with a half-made mess of a dress a few weeks before my wedding, in search of someone to help me fix it! When I found Brit (my fairy god mother!), she worked her magic (she is incredibly talented, kind and wonderful to work with) and helped me create the dress of my dreams in only a few weeks.
HOORAY: Were you very worried about anything on the day?
LOUISE: The weather! Anyone who knows me and my fiance knows that we are beach bods. We love the sunshine and the outdoors and it’s for this reason that we chose to get married in the garden. The week before our wedding the weather was absolutely glorious, however, the weather was due to turn drastically on the day and a very cold front was in store. Overnight the wind howled and the rain came down, but just before the ceremony began, the sun came out from behind the clouds and the wind died down and although still quite nippy, it was a beautiful day and the sun shone – which was all I ever wanted! There was obviously a lot of worrying on the day about this and we couldn’t get married in the garden as we had planned, but it all still worked out wonderfully!
HOORAY: What was the hardest part of planning?
LOUISE: Trying to keep a balance between wedding, work and play. Being engaged is such a precious time, and my fiance and I wanted to make the most of it by spending lots of time together and enjoying our weekends etc. However, with having a very short engagement and thus so much planning to do and big joint decisions to make in a short period of time, we found our weekends were often spent doing wedding prep and chores! It was hard to keep the balance of enjoying our engagement period and also having to tick hundreds of things off the list. My advice: Make the chores fun and use the wedding prep time as an opportunity to spend time together in a different way.
HOORAY: What would of you added if your budget was unlimited?
LOUISE: We would hire an old VW old camper van (this has always been my dream car) to use as a a prop for the day, for pics and then the best part, as a getaway car!
HOORAY: After it all, what piece of advice would you give your bestie?
LOUISE: You need to constantly remind yourself of the point of the wedding; it is to marry the man you love! Don’t get caught up in the completely over-the-top wedding event that it can become. Keep coming back to the point of the wedding – this will help bring perspective!
HOORAY: We couldn’t have said it better!
Supporting Cast:
Venue: Maroupi
Decor: Adore Weddings
Photography: Michigan Behn of Vanilla Photography
Dress: Britney Stewart
Catering: Delish Sisters
Dessert: Scoop Ice-cream
Donut Cake: Wicked Donuts
Wedding rings: Catalisa Jewellery
Hair and makeup: Tia of Nixon makeup
Bridesmaids dresses: my Mum
Stationery: Illustration of bride&groom – Chole Kemp from Rawoats
Watercolour flowers and wreath design: Grace Creativ (grace_creativ)
Stationery design: bride
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