Hello love bugs, you may have been wondering where I have been and why I haven’t blogged or filmed a video in months. Well this post will explain everything and any questions you were asking. If you would like to have a spectacular wedding, plan it under four weeks and keep to a budget then you visited the right website, continue scrolling.

A Budget Wedding

If you been following me for the past 3 months you should know I recently got engaged to the love of my life on my birthday (13 March 2015). We decided to plan what our ideal wedding would be and jotted down guest lists etc. thinking that in about two years we would have planned the perfect wedding. A few weeks later, the 29^th of April 2015, we woke up with a genius idea to get married in a month. Really?? You may be saying??? Yes really!! We only decided that because we said to ourselves why wait for years to pass us when we could do it right now.So we approached our families and told them the news, and to their surprise they didn’t know what to say or do.

Now with Dale's dad working away, his sister living overseas and my sister working in a different city we had to strategically plan our wedding date to coexist on the same weekend that they all happened to be home We set the date for the 31st of May 2015, a Sunday afternoon to be exact praying for sunny weather and a venue.

The Invites

We decided to not incur any unnecessary costs so we did the invites, thank you cards and party favours ourselves. I designed and created all the graphical elements and then had them printed at the print shop at Musgrave Center. Dale and I then drove around hand delivering each invite, explaining the reason why we were giving such short notice. With only four weeks’ notice for our guests, we decided to limit the invites to only seventy guests which was hard because Dale is from such a huge family. People were shocked when we told them the date of the wedding as some thought I had fallen pregnant and wanted to rush the wedding, but it was not the case, we were just excited to start our lives together and plan a wedding.

The Plan

So the planning began, every weekend and daily stop was the décor store, printing shop if either of us stumbled upon ideas we would put them together in our wedding file. I am the organized one in the relationship so I printed and created a wedding binder to keep track of what we doing and how we spending. I will be honest in saying I tried to stick to the criteria printed but as days passed I saw better and more beautiful ideas to include. I had my mum running around for me, organizing all the décor and flowers whilst my sister was organizing the bridesmaids.

The Wedding

I had a vision of what my ideal wedding would be, the colour, décor, flowers and the “dress”. I had been dreaming about this day for so long and it finally dawned on me that I was planning my wedding. The most crucial part of the wedding was the venue, and because we wanted a wedding in 4 weeks, venue options were becoming almost impossible. But we prayed and prayed and trusted God that he will come through for us, because he knows our hearts desires. And just in the Knick of time, we found the perfect venue under our noses, eMakhosini Boutique Hotel. We were sent a contract, menu options and décor plans for our wedding which we signed the very next day. Our wedding was slowly coming together and we could not contain the excitement. Our colour scheme was decided months before as Tiffany Blue & Nude and so was the “dress”.

The Bridal Party

The bridesmaid’s dresses were chosen by me and created by a local seamstress. We had quite a hassle in the beginning but the end result was perfect. The groomsmen suits was by the far easiest which I left up to Dale. The initial outfit I wanted the pageboy to wear was not as appealing to him as I thought it would be so we had to settle for something more comfortable and affordable especially because of the short notice. The design I had in mind for the flower girls was a little extravagant so I left it up to the mums of the little girls to take my vision and run with it. The finally product was absolutely gorgeous and made me such a happy bride.

The Bride & Groom

When it came to Dale and me, we had always known what we wanted to wear on our wedding day, it was a matter of recreating it. Dale’s suit was hired from Suit Yourself in Durban North and I had my dress made by a local designer in town, Bilou Bah. If you look at the original image of the dress and what the designer recreated I was absolutely stunned. I did however have some difficulty as I lost too much weight on my bust area so my dress had to be taken in so many times even to a point that I was at the designer’s rooms the night before the wedding taking in my dress (but I will tell you more about that in my next post).

Hair & Makeup

The bridesmaid decided to do their hair the day before because of the type of style I wanted, the curls would only set on day old hair. I also made the same choice because I was going to wear extensions for extra volume and length.

Let me be the first to say, ladies you do not have to go for trials for hair and makeup, I did not feel the need to so and my hair and makeup turned out perfect. Most people feel the need to do trials and they waste their money because they not happy with the result. Save that money you would use on the trial for something else like the outfits the bridesmaid and bride are going to get dressed in when taking pictures in the room.

I decided to do my makeup and the bridesmaid’s makeup, only because they were all comfortable with my using makeup on their skin and I am very fussy when it comes to bad makeup. I went for a very natural look because the dresses were so bright and they had heavy accessorized earrings. For my makeup I tried a brown smokey eye to accentuate my eye socket and contour my face. The end result was just want I wanted and we all know a happy bride makes a beautiful wedding and not to mention it was cost effective.

Playing Dress Up

The girls got ready in white collared shirts which my sister, the MOH bought from Pick n Pay clothing. They were oversized works shirts which I thought would be perfect ‘dresses’ for them to take pictures in whilst we were getting ready and doing our makeup in the room. I got ready in a red number which was sent down by my beautiful friends in Dubai (UAE). It was a sexy red dress with a slit on the left leg which made for the perfect pictures.

The Dj & MC

So this is a funny story, God knows how to joke around. We didn’t have to pay a cent for a DJ, sound equipment etc. It so happened that Dales uncle was a DJ and my Uncle told me many years ago that the day I get married he will be my MC and the day arrived for them to show off. They did the best job ever, the music got the guests dancing the whole evening and the jokes cracked between speeches made the mood lighter.

The support we received throughout the planning goes to show you don’t need to have a million rand wedding to have the best day of your life, if you can afford it do it but don’t break the bank. There’s so much that can be done if you ask God and you make him the center of your relationship. I hope you enjoyed this post, I know it is long but I just thought you would like to know all about how we planned a wedding in four weeks without going crazy.

Be sure to read the next post which will be more in-depth about the wedding including our wedding pictures and tips on budgeting for a wedding.

Stay Blessed.