Last week-end Ray and I had a rare childless night! We drove out to Stellenbosch to celebrate my cousin's wedding. We left the children, happily, at our friend's. They were very excited about an opportunity to sleep over the whole night!
Stellenbosch is a beautiful wine-farming area. The wedding and reception was held on Kanu wine estate. The ceremony took place outside on the lawns and we had a spectacular view surrounding us.
The bridesmaids arrived, each one wearing a green dress which was a different shade and style-it looked beautiful.
Abbey, the elegant bride, escorted by her very proud, tearful dad arrived thereafter! Her dress was covered with lace and tiny beads. The soft chiffon veil looked so beautiful flowing in the wind. (Unfortunately it was rather windy that day-but I don't think she noticed!)
The newly weds, Lawrence and Abbey, just look at that smile! Lawrence is from New Zealand. They are both very sociable people (just like their parents!) so there were many visitors from all over the world. It made for a very lively reception, filled with laughter and love.
I recently cut my hair short and had had it coloured for the wedding (needing to hide those greys!) It was rather funny that even my mom and brother didn't recognise me at first. In fact not one family member at the reception recognised me-my brother says I've had an Extreme Makeover. I will admit it is taking some getting used to!
After a long night of dancing and Kiwi/SA/British entertainment we headed back to our B&B-which we had decided to spoil ourselves with instead of driving the long way home. It was very strange waking in the morning not to be greeted by little smiling faces, but I knew that we should make the most of our time alone so we slowly enjoyed our breakfast while relaxing in the B&B's garden.
After breakfast we drove to a nearby wine estate to try for a peaceful, romantic walk in the vineyards, but it was too early! So we headed off to Spier (a very touristy destination) to walk through their gardens. By this time it was getting close to 11:00 and I was feeling the pull to head back home to see our children.... well it turns out that they had had a great time and with very brief hello's they quickly returned to playing with their friends!
It was a blessing to spend the night out, but even more of a blessing to have our whole family sleeping under one roof again that night! What can I say? I'm a mother hen who likes her little chickens to be close to me ;-)
