An Elegant Destination Wedding in a South African Vineyard: Katie & Simon

Wine and weddings make the perfect partnership don’t they! Today’s elegant destination wedding took place in a beautiful South African vineyard and was captured by talented wedding photographer Steve Gerrard.

Simon & Katie had a subtle colour palette of light grey and white incorporaing their initials into a few aspects of the styling with glass vase chandeliers adding a modern and romantic look to their special day.

Such a beautiful understated destination wedding and I just adore Katie’s very pretty Wtoo wedding dress…

Words by Simon. Images by Steve Gerrard Photography.

Katie chose the Wtoo Persiphone Gown wedding dress because it was classically elegant, light and with a low bac. She purchased it from Tilly Trotters in Leamington Spa.

flowers, bridesmaids

The flowers were done by Lush. The overall look we were aiming for was “white & elegant, classy yet modern with a wow factor” and Lush were recommended to us by Wedding Concepts as the most capable of meeting our brief, which they did!

Outside was a decorated gazebo for the ceremony with parasols for the guests to withstand the very high temperatures. White flowers were placed along the aisle.

Katie’s dad Charlie gave her away, they walked down the aisle to Ed Sheeran’s ‘Tenerife Sea’.

I proposed to Katie during a sunset visit to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio de Janeiro.

I had been aware of wedding photgrapher Steve’s work since attending a Gemma Hayes gig a few years ago (Steve spends his time shooting bands/music as well as weddings) so we’d had him mind as our wedding photographer for a few years.

He arrived in South Africa a couple of days before the wedding to join in with all the pre-wedding fun with the added bonus that by the time we got to the actual wedding day, both of us (and all the wedding guests) were very relaxed and comfortable around him.

Steve was friendly and professional at all times and by the end of the wedding felt more like a good mate. His stunning pictures speak for themselves and we can’t recommend him highly enough!

Glass drop vases hanging from the chandelier in the main hall where the dinner was held were used for decor. Also a lot of different sized glass vases filled with floating candles and flowers along with fairy light curtains.

Wedding Concepts also suggested a simple two tier cake accompanied by a dessert station which amongst many treats included cupcakes, mini cheesecakes, biscuits (which were iced with our own wedding ‘logo’.

Wade had every type of sponge and filling you could possible imagine for the wedding cake and we decided on a lemon and poppy seed sponge for one tier and salted caramel and chocolate for the other.

The cake design was also beautiful and went with the white and grey colour scheme of the wedding.

What was your most memorable moment of the day / evening?

Too many to choose from, we were incredibly lucky with the weather (although it was unseasonably hot, there was a mini-heatwave and instead of being a comfortable 25C, it was touching 40C on the wedding day!), the decor was stunning and better than anything we could have imagined.

The food and wine was amazingly good, along with the various entertainment that played throughout the day and obviously the ceremony and getting married to each other surrounded by our family and friends had to come pretty high up there! :-)

What was your most memorable moment of the day / evening?

If you could impart any words of wisdom to future brides and grooms planning their wedding day, what would they be?

If you’re considering having a wedding in a different country, then you cannot underestimate the value of having a good, effective (and understanding) wedding planner – ours arranged everything and were fully transparent in terms of keeping to our budget.

They really helped us both be relaxed about all the various arrangements and stopped Katie from turning into a ‘control freak’..!