The Paper Tree

It feels a little strange to be posting about this now - but I have so many awesome things that I haven't shared with you from our wedding day - and seeing as though our first wedding anniversary is just around the corner (IT'S ON SUNDAY, WARREN) - I figured, why not?!

Right before everyone was called inside to enjoy the epic feasting on our wedding day - the MC called us to gather around the side of Netherwood. Warr's dad then began the most peculiar speech... it started with Graham (my dad) receiving some alarming emails from Sappi, which then turned into frantic phone calls from the paper manufacturing giants - which soon became severe warnings from the Environmental conservationists who had gathered together at the Eco World Summit - to discuss the problem.


Everyone was listening intently as the story unfolded (even the mass of flowergirls above). It turns out that a small little "factory" in Hilton had been burning through so much paper in the recent months, that the Mondi Forest program had alerted the authorities about the rapid decline of paper trees in the area. (ahem, Save the Dates (including an entirely wooden pencil), Wedding invitations (featuring several sheets of paper each), Five hundred pieces of church programs, betting sheets, name cards and about a thousand different menu pages.)

The Dads then decided that in order to quell the angry conservationists - they would help the paper-depletion problem (created by a one-times-indieBerries-on-a-wedding-mission) by replanting a paper tree in honour of all those that had been sacrificed to make the best wedding in all the lands.

Warr and I had no idea about any of this and yes, you guessed it, I shoveled a stash of dirt in my beautiful white wedding dress:

 

Two weeks ago, when Warr and I were both in the midlands, we took a drive out to Netherwood to visit our tree and give it some love. At first, as we drove over the hill, we couldn't see it and thought that someone had dug it up - (HOW COULD THEY?!?!) but as we got closer we saw it was still there... still a very young little sapling but growing stronger and more beautiful every day.

Just like us.

x

A taste of our love story....

A while back, I posted some wedding pictures of me eating (or feeding Warren) "KFC" on our wedding day - and since I have been asked by some indieBerries readers what that was all about - I've decided to share it today! Grab yourself a cuppa - because this post is juicy! (And you will actually need to read it, for it to make sense. lol).




Before I begin this post on our wedding food - I have to give a HUGE massive THANK YOU to Margie - our most awesome caterer from Aubergine. Not only did she completely jump on board with all my crazy ideas (which began with a "build-your-own-pizza-at-your-table!" idea - {which nearly gave my mother a heart attack}), but she was so enthusiastic and awesome to work with. I can definitely recommend her services if you are looking for someone fab to cook you up a FEAST!

(Warr and I sneaking into the kitchen - to thank the kitchen staff on the wedding night!)

Since the food is one of the main "ingredients" (lol) of a wedding, I wanted it to be part of the day rather than the thing you have to sit through in order to get to the drinking and partying. So we decided to come up with a way that guests could enjoy the food throughout the day and be guided through it... so I came up with the idea of:

"A taste of our love story"

Warren and I have had a very different/unique/interesting/up-and-down/long path that finally led us to our marriage and we wanted to share that story with our guests and what better way to do it, than through our food.

As part of our canapés, Margie served a very "South African" array of goodies - cones of biltong, "braai-broodjies" and spicy crumbed chicken (which she put in KFC containers - that my dad managed to source from the KFC head office).

Warren and I met in South Africa, at a Rhodes formal dinner - with a "trailer trash" theme. The night we met - we were served KFC from big family-sized buckets - trailer park style. At this point, our guests had no idea why they were being served (delicious) spiced chicken from mini KFC buckets - but it was the first hint of the "taste of our love story" that they were about to enjoy.

After canapés on the lawn, guests were ushered in and requested to find their seats. Typically expecting a starter to arrive - our guests were surprised (with many ooohs!! and aaaahs! going around) - when the very first trays of food to be served (following the amazing array of canapés outside) were tinned mugs of ice-cream and lemon juice!

If you go back and read the story of how we met - you will realise that Warren seduced tricked me into sampling his "ice-cream and lemon juice" concoction - which is what led to our first kiss. So we decided to serve that first to our guests as a little something different - with a note explaining it's significance (above).  The note also helped guests to make sense of the "KFC" that was served outside. From then, our MC explained that the food of the evening would be part of the love story that developed between Warren and I - and each course would be accompanied by a little note for guests to piece together our story. Serving ice-cream and lemon juice first - definitely made guests sit up and take notice of their food and they were all so excited for the next course to arrive!

Our food was served in between speeches which gave guests time to re-fill their drinks and enjoy the meal (and love story), course by course. The next course of food to arrive were Greek Mezze Platters for the tables - 

With each course, I created a menu that included a "food-story" timeline - so that our guests would know where exactly in "our journey" they were. Each slot on the timeline was revealed only when the course was brought out with the explanation. So that by the time the last course arrived - our guests would have the entire love story and could read it along as it happened chronologically from March 2005 (when we met) right up until our wedding day.

Following the Greek Mezze Platters, guests were each served a deconstructed salmon and cucumber sandwich (the note of which is above). Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it - but it was delicious!). This course represented the trip I made to London in August 2011 - where we had pimms and cucumber sandwiches overlooking the Thames - swans included. I printed the menus on brown cardstock (which co-ordinated with the Moroccan tones of the decor) and I brushed each menu with copper, bronze and gold paint along the edges - which matched so well with the coppery pots and jugs that formed part of our decor.

Next on the tables was a deliciously lip-smackin' Thai Green Curry. In October 2008, (when I had just moved to South Korea - and Warren was still living in London), we decided to meet up on holiday in Thailand. 

We served the Thai green curry with chopsticks (always fun for guests!) that were tied with personalised wedding ribbon. Attached to the chopsticks was a little note that linked the chopsticks to South Korea - where Warren came to visit me for the weekend (shortly after my trip to London - the one where we decided "it was on!")

The last course to be served was a scrumptious plate of Easter Eggs, brownies and strawberries. Warren proposed to me on the Good Friday of Easter (6 April 2012) and we were married exactly one year later, on the 6th of April 2013. It seemed only fitting that our final course included Strawberries and Easter Eggs - which we also incorporated into our wedding cake.

On the 6th of April 2012, 2583 days after meeting, Warren flew to South Africa to surprise Ché for the Easter Weekend. Ché was completely caught off guard & nearly fell off the balcony when she saw him. That night, exactly one year ago today, Mr Warren Dyer got down on his knee and proposed.

And of course,

She said yes.

Ahhh.... *sigh*

Such good memories!

Once again to the awesome Margie from Aubergine - for putting up with my thousands and billions of papers, strange menu requests and creating such INCREDIBLE gourmet food - our guests absolutely loved it and we cannot thank you enough!

* * * * *

The story behind the sunglasses - coming soon.

PS. Thank you to all the friends and family whose pictures I have used in this post - our photos are a big jumble so I'm not very clearly able to credit you all - but thank you so much for sending them to us! 

Decor Details

Last week an indieBerries reader sent me a message asking if I would be sharing any more of our wedding pics - and that she was particularly curious as to why I was noshing from a box of KFC at my wedding. After the "incident with the wedding photos" it has been pretty disheartening to trudge through the half-pile of screen grab pics, semi-edited shots, facebook-friend-shots and complete mess-pile that is our "wedding album".

I have tried to slowly sift my way through the mash-up of folders on my desk top to try and create some kind of album for us. As I was searching for some food pics to share - I have begun to realise just how much of our wedding I haven't actually shared on indieBerries. Partly because after we found out that our photos had been sabotaged by a dog - I didn't really feel like trying to sort through the shots we do have.

On the semi-positive side of having our wedding photos destroyed - I have actually been in touch (via email) with another bride whose wedding photos were on the same hard drive as ours. We have exchanged a few emails  - mainly containing words which are not appropriate for this blog. We're internet pals now. It's cool.

Perhaps, because it feels like SO MANY people got engaged at the end of last year, or that wedding season is kicking off and people are looking for inspiration, or that our very first wedding anniversary is fast approaching (whaaaat?!?!?) or perhaps it is because I am currently busy with two different sets of wedding stationery, bespoke wedding cartoons and three different wedding guestbooks.... whatever the reason, I am suddenly feeling all wedding-ish! So I've decided to share some of the snaps that never made it to the blog last year.

Before I share the food - and the story of the KFC, I thought I would start off with some of the detail/decor that we had.

These photos were taken by our photographer and are screen-shots of a computer screen (I know). I have had inner turmoil about whether to a) leave these photos completely un-credited, or to b) credit the photos appropriately and give a bad impression of the (very popular) wedding photographer that we hired.

MORAL. CONUNDRUM.

Note: I have nothing bad to say about the photographer we hired, we loved his style and portfolio and think he is a great photographer - which is why we chose him. I do however have some very choice words for his dog. Will leave his work uncredited so as not to petrify anyone who may read this and has recently hired him. (Trust me, I'm pretty sure he won't be making the same mistake again.)

So anyway - here are some of our wedding decor details!

 


I love rich bold colours: golds, bronzes and coppers. So we opted for a "Moroccan-esque" wedding theme to be able to incorporate those ideas into our day. I also knew I didn't want too many flowers taking over the show, so it was great to have a few quite striking "stalks" in the gold and coppery pots dotted around the room. Very dramatic and statement-y. The "theme" also worked so well with our wedding venue, Netherwood - because of how well the coppery/bronze pots toned in with the wooden sleepers (behind in the pic above) and the rough/textured walls (below).



The glass pots, bashed copper kettles and mosaic bowls we had on the table centres looked so gorgeous when the sun went down and the candles were lit. They created such an awesome warm glow! I wanted all the tables to be different - so although each table had a similar vibe going on - no two tables were the same.


  
We wanted to incorporate bright and fun colours into the day - (take a look at our flower girl dresses here!) so we put bright pops of colour over the chairs, and onto the name cards which were laid on gold chargers.


As wedding favours for the ladies, my aunt and uncle embroidered some throw blankets with our names and the date -
We had a variety of different coloured throw blankets (above: purple/mauve and below: orange). We also had some bright pink blankets and turquoise blue blankets.





I wanted everything about our day to have a textured "made with love" kind of feel - so we used lots of different papers - tissue papers, metallic papers, coppery papers, recycled papers. And washi tape. There was a LOT of washi tape. More on that to come.


As favours for the men, we bought different sets of games including dominoes, playing cards and pick up sticks. I wrapped each of the games in brown paper and added different coloured strips of "feature paper". I then hand stamped messages onto each one. Messages included things like "hearts"  - on the playing cards. "game on!" - on the dominoes and "pick up lines" - on the pick up sticks. Other messages included "play", "happy" and "thank you".

Will share some of the foodie pics we have soon!
I can't believe it was almost an entire year ago - MAN ALIVE - time has FLOWN!!!