Anne & Simon – Constantia Uitsig

How did you meet?

This is one of those “it was meant to be” stories. We actually met at a sporting competition 400 miles away from where we both lived, in Newcastle, in the north of England. The contest was a weekend long games, involving around 50 different sports – I was competing in the squash competition, and Anne was at the event working as a fundraiser, as her charity was the official charity of the games. One of my teammates knew Anne, and he bumped into her one evening at a large party held for all 6000 competitors of the games. I ended up staying to chat to her for longer, and found that we had a mutual friend in my place of work. That mutual friend then gave me her email address, and then I arranged our first date. So it really was meant to be, us meeting 400 miles away from where we both lived in a building containing 6000 people!

How did he propose?

We were in Venice for a few days on a short holiday. I had been planning to propose whilst we were there, but was waiting for the right moment to ask. Suddenly, the moment felt right – we were standing in St Marks Square in the spring sunshine, there was a string quartet playing beautiful music in the background, and so I looked her in the eyes and asked her to marry me.

The Wedding day – how did you feel?

As the wedding was at 5pm, we had the whole day to get more and more worked up about it. We both felt an odd mix of emotions – on the one hand there was a the excitement at the thought of getting married! On the other there was disappointment at the weather (wind and rain) – we had been dreaming of an idyllic summer’s day, getting married outside in the sunshine in the shadows of Table Mountain, but the weather changed all that. However, when I saw what Aleit and Jaco had managed to arranged as a plan B, all of my disappointment melted away in a heartbeat! They had worked such wonders in setting up the courtyard with flowers, seating etc, that the weather didn’t matter one jot – in fact I firmly believe that their plan B actually made our wedding ceremony better than it would have been outdoors, as having the ceremony under the shelter of the veranda at La Colombe created a much more intimate feeling to the ceremony, making it feel as if our friends and family were truly part of the ceremony and not just watching us from afar.

There was no sense of nervousness for either me or Anne – it all just felt perfectly natural – although I must confess to having tears in my eyes as the musicians struck up our song for Anne to walk down the aisle to me. The ceremony was wonderful – Mark said just the right words to enhance the feeling of the day, and the whole time Anne and I just looked into each other’s eyes. After the ceremony, we spent the rest of the day with huge grins on our faces – Anne is smiling beautifully, and everyone who has seen our wedding photos has commented that I am grinning from ear to ear, looking like the cat that got the cream!!

If that wasn’t enough, Aleit and the team made sure there was a lovely surprise waiting for us as we were shown to the table for our evening meal. We were simply blown away by the setting the team had created – they worked so well together to create a truly awe-inspiring setting for our meal – the flowers on the table were just stunningly beautiful, the chandeliers created the most wonderful lighting and the whole setting was more beautiful than anything Anne and I had imagined in our wildest dreams!

The overriding emotion I can remember from the day was simply an incredible sense of happiness, and a calm that comes from knowing that everything is perfect – that is really the best way to describe how we felt! There was simply nothing else that could have happened to make the day any better – it was better than we had hoped for, and can truly be described as perfect.

The Honeymoon – where?

Our honeymoon was as far from traditional as you can imagine – we travelled over to Plettenberg Bay, where we hired a beachside house for eight days, and stayed there with some of our closest friends who had flown into South Africa from UK and New Zealand just for the wedding! It was the first time we had all been together for many years, so instead of the traditional honeymoon just the two of us disappearing somewhere, we spent it with our friends showing them the sights of an area that Anne and I truly love! We took them to game reserves, wildlife sanctuaries, shark diving, plenty of walking, and some truly wonderful restaurants. Not a traditional honeymoon, but it has given us some fantastic memories, experiencing a place we adore with people we love!

Any advice for future brides & grooms

Savour every moment of the day – relish the memories for as long as you can. When it is over, it will feel like it all went by in a flash, so make sure you savour every moment of the day to make the memories last!

Something nice about the Aleit team

Where to begin? I’m not sure there are words to describe how thankful we are to the team for their efforts in making our day better than we imagined it could ever be! The imagination and hard work of the team in the build up to the big day, and also on the day itself, created the most perfect wedding for us – our faces have permanent grins on them with pure happiness at how the day went!

The plan B setup thought up by the team was fantastic – it dispelled any disappointment we had over the weather, and as I said above, I truly believe that the plan B setting made the ceremony better, and more intimate, than if it had been in the original outdoor location.

The flowers were stunning – such vibrant colours and displays – even now we cannot get over how beautiful the flowers were.

The room setup for the evening meal was just amazing – the flower table decorations were beautiful, and the chandeliers created the perfect atmosphere and really enhanced the intimate, laid-back feeling we wanted. (It has to be said that Aleit was right regarding the chandeliers – in early conversations on the phone, Anne and I were skeptical about the chandeliers, worrying that they would make the room seem too formal – in fact they achieved the opposite effect, and Aleit deserves credit for insisting we use them – just goes to show you should trust the experts!) The biggest compliment which can be paid regarding the setup of the room comes not from Anne and me, but from Anne’s cousin and his partner, who work on the serving staff at Buckingham Palace, and have worked as First Class cabin crew for airlines. They are used to refined settings, and table decorations, and both of them said that the table for our wedding dinner was by far the most beautiful table they had ever seen.

There are simply no words to properly describe how thankful we are to Aleit and the team for all their efforts – they created a wedding day that was better than anything Anne and I had ever imagined. We had always pictured a lovely wedding in a beautiful location – Aleit and the team took that idea and made the perfect occasion – something for which we will be eternally grateful.

Photography by: www.joe.co.za