To get to the ceremony most brides hop into a limo, vintage car or some form of fancy transport. I however had planned on walking to the ceremony. But thanks to the torrential rain, walking 4oom to the ceremony in a long ivory wedding through muddy grass wasn’t an option. (I was more than happy to lift up my dress and walk barefoot with my dress around my knees…but thats apparently un-bride-like).
So Cassi, the Retreat at Wiseman’s wedding planner extrodinaire had organised a golf cart to transport me. The driver…my father. Now in any normal family one would think ‘hey, her dads driving the golf cart, how lovely’. But we must remember my dad is a crazy Dutchman with one mission in life and that is to embarrass/torment me. And then one must reconsider the golf cart idea. We didn’t. No one died, I didn’t fall in the mud but his driving certainly distracted me from any nervous-ness I had about the ceremony.
Dad felt the need to take his hands off the steering wheel to take some photos!
Photos such as these:
My mother, bridesmaids and flower girls making their way (in a rather (un)ladylike fashion to the ceremony)
Me in mock terror, while steering the golf cart while dad played photographer (he was having a great time!)
Dad and I in the golf cart (I seemed to have slipped into a coma of some sort).
Anyway. We made it to the start of the aisle alive. We all stood in our positions, waiting to walk down the aisle. And waited…and waited. I am not 100% if the musicians were waiting for us..or if we were waiting for them. The aisle was at least 100m…so dad stood with his thumb up in the air waiting for someone to give us some form of signal. Gabrielle my wonderful musician friend saved the day, she gave dad the thumbs up, and we were off.
Here is my gorgeous bridal party walking down the aisle.
First were the flowergirls: Katherine on the left, Talia on the right. Talia is Balinese and thus the girls carried beautiful Balinese buckets with gum leaves in them instead of rose petals.The bridesmaids came next. Kat first, then Mel and then Jennifer, we all went to high school together and are still really close friends.
Last but not least was me and my family. Tradition says the the Father of the Bride gives her away. But I wanted my whole family to walk me down the aisle. The 4 of us are really close and I wanted to have them by my side as I walked towards Lindsay.
They all look so proud! I love my family and that they love Lindsay too makes me very happy!
As we walked down the first 10 metres of the aisle I saw how many people were standing there, with all their cameras. The first thought that sprang to mind was “why did we invite so many people” and then asked my mum if it was ok for me to vomit.
We got to the archway near the ceremony, and I hugged Jacob (my brother) and my mum who then headed to their positions. The last little bit of the aisle Dad walked me down. I was so caught up in the moment looking for Lindsay, trying not to sink into the mud etc that I held my bouqet up in the air weirdly. I also missed the song that my amazing muso friends had transcibed and learnt just hours earlier for me to walk down the aisle to. (hopefully I can hear it in the video from the videographers).
From left to right, Nicole, Natalie and Gabrielle. I was friends with them all the way through high school. They had practised the music all day as they hadn’t played together in over 4 years! Gabrielle organised all the music and did an amazing job. I am so lucky that I have such talented friends! I wish that I had had a chance to hear them play because everyone kept telling me that they were fantastic!
I reached the end of the aisle and saw Lindsay playing our song “Little Garcon” by Born Ruffians on the guitar alongside the girls. It was very romantic to be serenaded down the aisle. He put the guitar down and stood waiting in his very handsome suit. I hugged my dad and latched onto Lindsay’s hand, ready for the ceremony to begin!
This is my favourite photo of Lindsay!
Up next, the ceremony.