Ten years ago, on the morning of Sunday 3rd October 2010 – I woke up a Mrs for the very first time. As we lay in bed reminiscing about the magical moments of the night before, we both expressed the bittersweet emotions that we could never do it again, that your wedding day/night only ever happens once in a lifetime. On honeymoon that next week, we promised that when we reach our ten year wedding anniversary milestone, we would celebrate again, in some magical way and renew our vows, our promise to each other again.

Back then, our ten year wedding anniversary seemed so far away – how blissfully unaware we were of how time flies. But each year on our anniversary, we remembered our promise of a 10 year vow renewal one day, in the year 2020. Last year, on our ninth wedding anniversary, we started making provisional plans – where we would have it, what the celebration look like, who we would invite – we had such wonderful dreams… And then 2020 rolled in and Covid-19 and lockdown hit our Nation. As the months passed by, our vow renewal dreams were shattered and we agreed that we would have to celebrate for our 11 year wedding anniversary.

Just one month before our anniversary date, Cyril Ramaphosa announced a move to Level Two lockdown, he opened up local tourism for getaways and he allowed gatherings of up to 50 people. At first, we only listened to the tourism announcement and we decided to book an anniversary weekend at our favourite Bush lodge, . After making our booking and hearing that we could accommodate a few more people at the lodge for the weekend, our vow renewal dreams started to come to life again.

It’s crazy to think and believe that with the most incredible team, we put our special celebration together in just three weeks. MC and I sat and planned what we wanted our celebration to look like: Bush setting, intimate and all about us. We are in our happy place in the African bush, having spent 7 out of 10 of anniversaries in the bush, and we wanted a small celebration with our nearest and dearest friends and family, and of course our girls. And a moment to reflect on our ten years and make our promise and commitment to each other again. The party planner and host in me wanted some of the finer details to be beautiful and I contacted some of our favourite friends and creatives in the industry and we got planning.

Over the next few days, I will share some snippets of our magical day with you – all the ideas and emotions, the beautiful photography and the amazing team that put it all together with us.

Photography: Bron from Vanilla Photography

x