{Sunny Skies}

 Had to share these images i shot, while on my way to my home away from home...  Absolutely stunning!
I just loved how the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds, and just could not pass on the chance to capture it...

Inspiring II { Happy Sunday }

Have a wonderful Sabbath everyone! it might nearly be over here in South Africa but its just starting out somewhere else in the world. May the Spirit touch your hearts and fill your souls with light this day!

Breathless

These were images i took last year, when i was in California, this was from our trip up to Tahoe...Totally worth the drive and the cold! 

Simply { Irresistible }

We just L.O.V.E it when this little one comes to visit! He is such the celebrity in our house...

But come on look at that cute face, how could you not just love it?? 

Dad was showing him how to drive the car on his iphone4, and the fishes swimming in the pond...

He got to ride on the bicycle with his big brother....

Andrew & Michelle Official Photos Revealed {Part I}

Ok, i know you have all been 'Dying' for the Official Photos from Andrew and Michelle's Wedding from last month. I know it has taken me a while, and i sincerely apologize, between all the stress at work, its hard to fit in a few editing sessions...

Here is some History on the Bride...

Michelle is truly one of my closest friends, we have been through so much together, over the last couple of years, and i am so blessed to have her in my life! we are lucky enough to spend almost every day together..(at the office) and you would think we would be sick of each other by now, but NO, its what keeps us sane :)

We often take trips during our lunch time at the mall to window-shop and to just to breathe, and more often than not, they always ask us if we are sisters. Shell is the bright and outrageous side of me, and i am the calm and grounded side of her :) we slot in right together...just like a puzzle...

Michelle and I both got engaged in 2009 maybe just a couple of months apart. It was so much fun to plan together, and share ideas...if one of us found something amazing we'd be emailing it off to the other...

It took a while, but her big day finally arrived, after alot of stumbling blocks, but they were overcome, and now here we are....

Anyway without further ado, here is {Part I} these are just a few of my all-time FAVORITES.

{The Brides Story}

Andy and I met while I was writing my final matric exams. I had cabin fever from being cooped up studying, and had a free week, so when my friend Lidia offered to take me along to her mid-week church youth group, I leapt at the chance. Now, I’m not a ‘churchy’ person – not by a long shot! – but it was a way to get out of the house and mingle with real people from this century rather than the historic figures I was trying to drill into my brain, so I was not going to say no! And just as well, too!

Andy – also one of the last people you would expect to see at church – was there with one of his friends, who is Lidia’s cousin; they all used to hang out together. After the introduction (and a shared smoke in the church parking lot) we all ended up sitting together during the youth group ‘session’, being typically rowdy and out-of-hand. It was on the way home that night that I confessed to Lidia that I made a point of hanging around the Jeep Clothing store because of the hot guys who worked there. Andy was one of them! Of course, this became a huge joke, and whenever we were near Eastgate, she would drag me to Jeep and chat to Andy for ages, all the while dropping hints that I was ‘into him’, as it were. But boys are dumb, and need things spelled out… So one night, after a particularly wicked night of ‘stalking’ him, Lidia sms’d Andy to tell him I was gaga for him. (Her words, not mine!) We invited him to a farewell party we were having that weekend for my friend who was moving to Australia.

I was surprised that he was as shy as he was (he was probably just stunned at the extreme eccentricities of the crowd that night), and I decided that if I was going to get involved with him, I was going to have to get the ball rolling… So, mid-conversation, I casually put my hand on his knee, and didn’t move it for the rest of the night. (Well, okay, a little… but you don’t want to know all the details, do you?) ;) By the time I headed home in the early hours of the morning, it was pretty much a done deal. There were a few dates after that… He took me to movies – romantic, right? Yea… Once Upon a Time in Mexico.  Twice. We’ve always been a little… different. We went for dinner and raucous drinks where I managed to spill Sangria all over my beige pants; we went to parties where the power was cut; we went to concerts and missed all the bands… and then, on February 3^rd 2004, he asked me to be his girlfriend, officially, outside a shoe store! How could I say no?!

After a roller-coaster seven years, on February 3^rd 2011, we got married. You know how most people talk about the ‘Seven Year Itch’? We turned that on its head and did the ‘Seven Year Hitch’ instead! Everyone was pretty surprised that we’d decided to get married in the first place, because we were always the couple who were adamant that we didn’t need it. Still, with life throwing screaming curve-balls at us at high speed and high frequency, we decided that we wanted it. And damn, what a party! 

We had originally planned a big – 100+ guests – picnic on an old farm out in the country, but because of life’s screaming curveballs, we ended up scaling everything back a whole stack and pushing the date back a few months. We both lost our dads, as well as my gran and aunt, in the last two years, and walking down the aisle without my dad was just not an option for me. There was so much emotion involved in the ceremony that we really wanted to keep it small and personal and intimate, rather than a big show for anyone else. For the reception, we decided to have an at-home, back-yard garden-party.We had a very small ceremony with our moms, my Gramps and Andy’s sister and brother-in-law, who did our photos and video, and it was very short – Rev Chunky told us to pay attention, because “if you blink, you’ll miss it!” Lucky for those of us with short attention spans, we had to re-do the ceremony twice, because the first time, he called Andy ‘Peter’, then we did the whole ceremony without rings, and – third time lucky – we remembered the rings and got all the names right! It was so typical that we did it all backwards and upside down! After the ceremony, we went for a spectacular Portuguese prawn dinner with our tiny guest list, and had a marvelous time!

Friday was spent running around madly, buying last-minute décor and flowers, and doing all the flower arrangements and set-up of the house and garden. My sister very graciously arranged for her friend, who does landscaping, to spruce up our garden during the week, so it looked perfect!

Most of our décor was DIY, from the coke-bottle lanterns (that looked gorgeous for five minutes before all the candles died out) to the tissue paper and doily pom-poms (Thanks Martha!) to the patch-work table cloths, which I sewed myself, much to the disbelief of all my school-friends, some of whom I had paid to sew for me at school as well as the flowers and the gorgeous wishing tree and all its accessories. 

Andy’s sisters gifted us our cake and petit fours, his brother-in-law did our video and some photos, my brother-in-law and niece did some photos, one of my closest friends did all our ‘official’ photos. A bunch of our friends pulled in early in the day to set up, which was a heaven-sent gift in itself! We were so blessed to have such talented and willing people in our lives! 

I, very wisely, didn’t eat enough on the morning of the reception, and had a spectacular sugar & blood pressure crash, so I was packed off to bed with a glass of coke and a slab of chocolate, and ordered to finish those and sleep. Somehow, I managed to catch some z’s, and when I woke up, the house was transformed! The moment I got out of bed and saw how gorgeous the garden and patio looked, and how beautiful the house looked, and how much fun everyone was having setting it all up… that was the closest I came to tears the whole day. I was utterly speechless – a huge feat for me! – and covered in goosebumps when I wondered into the lounge and saw everything come together exactly how I’d imagined it. I didn’t even have to direct people; my friends and family knew exactly what we had in mind, and brought it together more than perfectly! It was home, but with a magic wand waved over it! 

Mozambique Moments