{Wedding} The reception music

I promised to do the reception music yesterday, but as luck would have it, I was passed out in bed in a codeine-filled stupor. Except for the one time I was awoken by my stupid Mila, who jumped from the bed when thunder started, to run outside to jump our fence. This is a whole new post in itself, but short story is that she can't get over our fence anymore and she was crying. So I had to get up, in my half drunk medicated state and fetch her. Stupid dog.

Anyway, here are the songs we chose for the reception. SPOILER ALERT! There is a tearjerker of a story right at the bottom, which you must, but must read!

Music for entering the reception - Quill - Bison

This was actually my original choice for my 'wedding march', but as I said in my last post that the song I eventually used just had me in tears. Flip suggested that we use this to enter the reception. It also has a beautiful message of writing your story and the path you will take in the light of God.

First dance songs

Okay, there were two, the traditional love song, which was Your Song by Elton John, covered by Ellie Goulding. It is just one of the most beautiful love songs on earth! We followed this up with Baby Tjoklits by Gerhard Steyn, an Afrikaans song, that has a backstory to it, so don't judge ;p

I'm just going to skip through the next few ones, because I want to get to important stuff. For our dad/daughter dance, my brother was supposed to play an acoustic version of Blackbird by the Beatles, but this didn't happen and he, who was also MC, forgot to announce the father/daughter dance. Just before the djays packed up, we asked them to play Butterfly Kisses. We danced halfway through then decided we are both overheating. The day was scorching!

For cutting the cake, we chose Overwhelmed by Tim McMorris, because it is just such a happy, happy song. One way or another by Blondie played when I threw the bouquet and Thunderstruck by ACDC played while Flip took off my garter. I nearly fell of the very flimsy chair.

The last song for the evening was Queen's Don't stop me now. Best.

However, there was one song that I didn't put on the list. And it's a little short story of its own, but I don't want to put my man on the spot here. I decided that I wanted to give a speech at our wedding, because I am woman, hear me roar. Jokes aside, I wanted to show Flip how much I loved him in the best way I could, written words. I was already beyond emotional by the time I finished my speech and then Flip's turn came.

He started by saying that he had never been good at giving speeches, as we all know, and he isn't a man of many words. As we all know. And even though he is not the type of guy who expresses his emotions, whether it be in public, or in private {and here Flip started getting teary eyed} he loves me more than anything on earth and the best way he knows how to show it, is through this song.

And then this started playing. And I sobbed, like a little baby.

A friend of mine said that every girl deserves a guy that looks at her the way he looks at me.

I am truly the luckiest girl on earth.

Pics: Kikitography

{Wedding} The ceremony music

 

Besides loving the life out of Flip and dogs, in particular staffies, I have a third passion – music. I probably cannot say that music is my thing, because I still cannot play the guitar – besides Free Falling by Tom Petty and the Heartbreaks, and I for sure cannot play piano, except for Colourblind by The Counting Crows. I dabbled a bit in the learning to play the harmonica, but that never went further than How Great Thou Art and a departed friend tried to teach me a few chords on the violin, but they all failed, miserably. So I cannot claim music as mine.

But I do. I am obsessed with music, I am obsessed with listening, and at one stage, I even had the chance to interview some of South Africa’s up-and-coming artists. I’ve always thought of myself as a music aficionado and thought that I would eventually end up working for a magazine such as Rolling Stone or NME. Anyway, what I am trying to say is that music is my everything, the listening part of it, and thus, choosing the music for our wedding day – our most important day – was almost more important to me than anything else.

It took me months of compiling, changing, putting back on, deleting other songs and so forth before I came up with the final mix that played during the reception. I gave our DJ a memory stick with 4 GB worth of music, so I can’t share every single song that played here, but I will share the most important ones and the story behind it.

Bridesmaids’ entry – I run to you – Lady Antebellum

My reasoning behind this was that Flip will be the one I run to in good times and in bad. He will be my beacon. It was a tad prophetic, as apparently, I walked down the aisle very very very fast. 

The Song I walked down the aisle on – The Wedding Song – Matthew Mole

This guy, from Vishoek, somewhere in South Africa, made headlines when he debuted at Nr 1 on iTunes. And I was intrigued by his music. But when I heard The Wedding Song, I started crying.

He sings about how God should be present in your union with your life partner and how you should not forget that you are on this path because of Jesus, that planned it long before you even knew who you would marry.

Exchanging of Rings – To Build a Home- The Cinematic Orchestra

Oh man, this song is just heart wrenching! I just love it. The other day we were watching Step Up 4 for the first time and here this song starts playing. I started crying as I remembered us exchanging our rings.

(I didn’t, however, find this song on that commercial dance franchise crap.)

The guest left the chapel on First Day ofMy Life by Bright Eyes, which was also while we were signing the register. And Flip and I left the chapel on You are the Best Thing by Ray La Montagne because it is just such a great feel good song.

That was the music for the ceremony. Tomorrow, I will share the reception music, otherwise, this will turn out into one helluva long post.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I still do. 

Pics: Kikitography

Adventures in Honeymooning {Clarens Brewery}

 
The other day I wrote about our first stop, Clarens, which is a quaint little art town in the heart of the Free State. One of our little adventures in this sleepy town included visiting the Clarens Brewery.

Started by master brewer Stefan Meyer in 2006, this little pub-like brewery creates fine hand crafted beers and ciders. We just had to try it out, because a) we were thirsty after covering the town by foot, from corner to corner and b) it offers free beer tastings. I am yet to meet a person who would say no to free beer.

The waiter brought us the little samples and explained that we would now taste:

Clarens Blonde - a beer with a biscuity aftertaste and the brewery's flagship beer.
Clarens English Ale - a smooth, medium-bodied caramel ale. 'One for the boys'
Clarens Red - an amber ale with fruity finish. It won the most popular beer on show at the SA On Tap Craft Beer Festival 2012.
Clarens IPA - an Indian Pale Ale with delcious, distinct hop character. It won the same award as the Red, but this year. 
Clarens Stout - classis stout with creamy texture and coffee aftertaste.  'A real winter warmer'
And the Clarens Weiss -  a German wheat beer with spice notes. 'Very refreshing.'

If you think that I remembered all this, you are mistaken. It was all on the menu. There were also a number of ciders, including an apple, cherry and a pineapple flavour. Oh my greatness.

He also mentioned that if I mix the cherry and apple flavours, I would get a chapple flavour. Not a fan. But I did order the delicious cherry cider on its own. I would drive the four hours back there just to have another one of those amazing ciders. Gee whizz! Flip opted for the Clarens Red, which was also a firm favourite.

The little brewery makes a 5000 l batch a month of beer!! which half is bottled and half served on tap.I really loved the character of the place, which was covered in currencies from around the world, like Ten trillion dollars from Zimbabwe. Could you just imagine having that much money? And it having an actual worth?

I also met this gentle giant outside, but I forget his name. His owner, a Scotsman, had ordered a vienna basket and kept slipping him a few pieces. He was the sweetest little pup!

 

AT R25 a pop, they are decently priced and well worth a visit. 

Adventures in Honeymooning {Golden Gate}

There’s a little town in the belly of the Maluti Mountain range, in the Free State, called Clarens. Now, some of you might be familiar with it, and although it increased in popularity in recent years, owing to its burgeoning artscape, the town has always held a sense of wonderment to me.

As a little girl, I became obsessed with the works of Father Claerhout, who called this town-of-five-streets-and-a-donkey home. My mom mentioned that one of my drawings struck a liking to that of Claerhout and I just had to know more about him. It stuck in my head that he was from Clarens, but I never did any research on the town itself.

So my idea of Clarens had been brought about from a priest’s art, with a rather childlike drawing style. Upon arrival, I immediately learnt that the town was much more different that his depictions of ladies washing clothes or a donkey pulling a cart full of flowers.

I was in awe from the moment we arrived and was absolutely thrilled when we learned that the Golden Gate National Park was a mere 17 km away. Please forgive my ignorance, but Flip had kept a cloak of secrecy on our honeymoon destinations and I found out about each place as we arrived.

He couldn’t have chosen our first stop better.