Weddings and flowers go hand in hand. Every beautiful blossom tells a different story, complementing the bride on her big day. If you’re planning a wedding and aren’t sure which bouquet to go with, why not go with the tried and trusted florals? These are the most popular wedding flowers of all time.
10 – Gardenia
Gardenia’s represent purity and joy, making them fun and playful additions to your bridal bouquet. This flower’s smell is intoxicating and will add an extra sweetness on your big day.
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9 – Sweet Peas
With ruffled petals and a unique shape, sweat peas are romantic yet whimsical. They signify “lasting pleasure”, making this flower a very sweet and meaningful bloom to carry with you on your big day.
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8 – Stephanotis
This flower represented “marital happiness” in Victorian times, which makes it fitting for a bridal bouquet. A Stephanotis bouquet or boutonniere is incredibly traditional and is often favoured by the more classic couple.
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7 – Ranunculus
If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative to roses, look no further. The rananculus is fuller, fluffier and whimsical, making it perfect for the unique bride.
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6 – Peony
Peonies represent love, happiness and ambition. Voluminous and romantic, this delicate flower is an expensive yet worthwhile addition to any bridal bouquet.
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5- Hydrangeas
This beautiful bunch makes for a perfect bouquet with its full, bushy shape. Use three stems to create a full bouquet, or simple add one or two into a bunch with other flowers to create dimension and fullness.
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4 – Lily of the Valley
This small, delicate bunch features bell-shaped florets, and has come to be known at the “ladder to heaven”. It’s a royal favourite, having appeared in Kate Middleton’s bridal bouquet back in 2011.
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3 – Calla Lilies
Also known as the arum lily, this flower offers a unique trumpet-shape that appears elegant and modern yet romantic. This flower originates in Africa and has come to represent magnificent beauty. Calla lilies are the perfect choice for a summer wedding.
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2- Tulips
Tulips have become popular wedding flowers for their representation of love. This flower is fresh yet elegant, perfect for the colourful bride wanting to be different. The most popular varieties are Dutch tulips, French tulips and parrot tulips.
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1 – Roses
Are you even surprised? Roses, the red variety to be specific, have symbolised love, passion and romance for decades. Roses are perfect for the classic bride. With over 3,000 varieties of roses to pick from, you’ll be spoilt for choice with this flower.
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Younger actress Hilary Duff, who recently tied the knot to Matthew Koma, shared some adorable pictures of their honeymoon in South Africa. After an intimate wedding ceremony, the…
Rehearsal dinners are by no means compulsory and, of course, are not the main event. However, I’m sure we can all agree that they are part of the fun of wedding celebrations. In fact, they set the tone for the beginning of the festivities.
The event commonly comes after a run-through of the wedding ceremony. While the rehearsal dinner is centred around fun, food, family and friends, it also serves some important purposes.
Often, the rehearsal dinner is the first time that all friends and family of both the bride and groom are under one roof. Many guests will be meeting for the first time. This is important as it allows all the guests and important attendees to get to know each other; it ensures that, on the special day, everyone is getting along and comfortably able to have fun with each other.
Another important function of the rehearsal dinner is the speeches. Most people prefer to keep the speeches on the wedding day to a minimum, with only the parents of the couple, the maid-of-honour and best-man saying a few words. Obviously, there are more people who might want to celebrate the happy couple with a word or two; maybe some friends, siblings, or other close family members. The rehearsal dinner is the time for all of these speeches. It allows for everyone to say what they want and feel as if they are a part of the wedding, without extending the duration of wedding speeches unecessarily.
But what is the origin of the rehearsal dinner, you ask?
Wedding historian Susan Waggoner notes that “Hundreds of years ago, attending a wedding could mean days of travel. The night before the event would find the tent, hut, castle, or manor house jammed to the rafters with friends, relatives, and emissaries, all of whom had to be fed.” Essentially, the tradition was created as a result of necessity. The couple would invite guests from far and wide and because traveling back then was not as easy as it is now, the visitors were often hungry on arrival.
After this, however, the tradition evolved to something a bit more fantastical. The rehearsal dinner, while still serving as a mass-feeding of arriving visitors, also became an opportunity to chase evil spitits away. It was believed that if attendees of the event were loud and rumbustious then evil spirits who wanted to ruin the couple’s chances of having a happy life together would be scared away. So, the idea was to gather all the guests for a dinner before the big day, and have everyone be as noisy as possible.
Today, the event remains useful in many ways and is sure to be a good idea.
Image: Unsplash
It may be a simplistic finish but, wow, is it beautiful. Watercolouring adds a dreamy, gentle and playful look to anything it touches, making this art technique perfect…
You’ve got your perfect gown, shoes and accessories. But what about your bridesmaids? Not only do you want them to look and feel good, you want them to make you look good. Believe it or not, the bridal party’s outfits can make or break your wedding pictures. Besides, this is the one time you get to tell everyone what to wear!
Now, apart from your wedding theme, the season and climate greatly affects the attire. If you’re having a summer wedding, opt for these cool ideas.
Soft, airy materials is the way to go. Florals are in (as always), but so are tiered dresses and even different colours and designs. The keyword here is fun!
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Also read: Rocking bridesmaid dresses for 2020
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Wedding season is exciting! Maybe a dear friend is tying the knot or a close family member is planning on saying “I do”. Perhaps a colleague or neighbour…
The power of social media is truly wild. A simple Direct Message (DM) on Twitter led this stunning South African couple to fall in love and get married by none other than former DA leader Mmusi Maimane.
Graham and Siyasanga Charters were both law students at the University of Cape Town but while they were on campus at the same time, they never met. However, they followed each other on Twitter and this is how their love story began.
After following each other for some time, Graham gathered the courage to direct messege Siya on Twitter, writing, “Hey, I know we haven’t met in person, but I know we share the same interests and are both into soccer and politics, so I was wondering if you would like to go out for coffee someday?”
Luckily for Graham, his message was succesful. Siya responded with, “Hey, I’ve been meaning to reach out to you so we can have a chat about Politics, I know the election is coming up soon, and I want to make an informed decision when I vote, so I would definitely would love to meet up, chat about politics and have some coffee.”
That coffee date at Truth Coffee Roasting turned into more than just a chat about politics. A month after their first date, they became an official couple. To honour their first date, Graham chose Truth as the perfect place to propose. He had the coffee shop run a poll for Siya to vote in. To her surprise, the poll was, “Will you marry me? Yes or No”. Of course, she said yes.
She said yes! pic.twitter.com/gq21i7Urak
— Graham Charters (@Graham7Charters) December 16, 2018
Fast forward a year and the beautiful couple said ‘I do’ at the Cavalli Estates in Cape Town. Graham is the former Chief of Staff to Mmusi Maimane, and had his boss officiate the wedding.
My great honour to marry my former Chief of Staff. It was a great journey from Lobola to here. Thank you for allowing me to be part of your future and remind us of the beauty of our nation. pic.twitter.com/xWhlJmTcHC
— Mmusi Maimane (@MmusiMaimane) December 30, 2019
We met on @Twitter
I slid into her DM’s
We fell in love
And I asked her to marry me.This is a God dream ❤️ pic.twitter.com/gkNS7AnLap
— Graham Charters (@Graham7Charters) December 30, 2019
And all of this from a simple Twitter DM. Congrats to the happy couple!
Image: Twitter