Monday 29 September 2014

The Wedding Governor

The photographer does not have transport to come to the venue, one of your bridesmaid's dresses is bursting on the seams, The ceremony is about to start and we need two miracle hours to finish up getting ready, Unity candles!but where is the matches? the caterer might not be ready to serve lunch on time, the groom has a headache and needs painkillers fast! 

Everybody's getting ready! Wedding day chaos. 'Lovely ladies though!'


These are but a fraction of the drama that one may or will encounter on their wedding day. Wedding day just spells out drama, no matter how well coordinated everything is, there will always be a glitch or two, for some the whole day is a glitch.

I personally am an organisation freak, I'm OCD like that and I planned my wedding day to the very last detail, and I mean that literally. I even had a schedule detailing the shade of nail polish I would wear and what time I would do it. 


A screenshot of my basic on the day timetable, fyi there was a more thorough timetable on the details page

Be that as it may; not everything went according to plan, the ceremony started 15 minutes late due to an electrical fault in the chapel, but it was totally worth the wait, 
otherwise we wouldn't have walked down this beautiful aisle 

The lovely aisle courtesy of 'Design by Janet'

to all my planned music, lol. Yep I did tell you I'm a plan freak... literally. On a percentile scale I would give Mr A. and I's wedding  an 80% in terms of going according to plan. 
Music List

Regardless of all the planning I couldn't have done it without the amazing help of my bridal team, friends, family and amazing vendors, I won't mention specifics but I downloaded all our ideas onto them and they tried their level best to see my vision come to life. Despite being a planning freak, I am quite a calm person if things do not go according to plan. My motto is 'Let's make the best of what we have and move on'. 

That leads me to my main issue which is Wedding governing. After my wedding a lot of people urged me to go into wedding planning, I was really tempted to try it out but biggest challenge is time. I work a full time demanding job and would not want to short change my work by dividing my attention. However a good friend of mine who was getting married approached me to assist her by running around for her on her big day. Sounded like an awesome idea, I wouldn't have to totally immerse myself into the planning and would let the bride put most of her ideas together. I would then attend a few wedding meetings and sit with her and get all her information and ideas. Come wedding day I would then be her voice , ensuring everything she desires would come to pass. I then went straight to google to research more on this type of wedding coordinating and discovered that it actually exists and is thriving. Some call these people an On the day Wedding coordinator, a day of wedding runner, a wedding sitter.... and a few more terms I am yet to discover. 

The day finally came and my friend got married, tell you what, after the wedding I thought to myself I should have hired a wedding runner for our wedding, that 20% deficit would have been filled out. During the final meetings I stood up for dear bride with regards to things she couldn't openly express to her family. Her husband and her handed the reigns to me and I placed ground rules that if anyone had a problem or a question it would be directed to me as of the day before the wedding. Her Whatsapp status even said 'For all wedding related issues call ........' and she put my number. From as early as 4 am on the wedding day my phone was ringing like a call centre. When I look back I can imagine all those people calling her instead of me! it would have spelt out nightmare..... an unhappy bride..

Though not everything was 100% up to scratch, I had a happy bride and groom, they had nothing to worry about, even the bridal team and family had developed the response 'Ask Nyasha!' Everyone managed to have fun. One Aunty decided to call me 'The Wedding Governor". I like it! it made sense because I was a bit of a 'meany' (a nice meany with a smile), but that's what you need on a wedding day or else things just won't happen.

There is nothing I enjoyed more than seeing my friend's sisters dance, enjoy and laugh instead of having to worry about when lunch would be served and where the cake knife was. You and your family do not need to worry about such things on your wedding day. Sit back and relax, you've done all you can and now it's time to cash in your efforts.

I thoroughly enjoyed dealing with the chaos in the background and helping my friend enjoy her day. I have a few weddings coming up soon that I will be governing. And have decided to put up my services for all who are interested, sharing is caring:). Believe me it's a small investment you will be glad you made for the rest of your life. I love "LOVE" itself and get a rush from witnessing two hearts joining as one, it doesn't matter who you are and we've never met. On your special day you are what I always tell brides and grooms to be - The ultimate VIPs and Guests of Honour. 



Please find attached a link for further reading on why 'Day-of coordination' is the future and why you need to get in touch with me..... Spread the word :)


courtesy of Kimberly Pilson

As your wedding governor I will also be available to offer advise on any wedding related matters. Once you get in touch you will learn that my services go beyond wedding governing, I have a few more tricks up this wedding sleeve.


Regards

Mrs A



Your Wedding Governor






Friday 23 May 2014

I Wish This was a Wedding Trend: Natural Hair

While going through wedding websites, catching up on wedding trends of 2014, I found myself wishing for a wedding trend for our Zimbabwean brides: Natural hair. The time has come for us to celebrate our natural hair on one of the most special days of our lives. Here are some ideas I came across as inspiration:

Lovely thick braids with a flower, a simple and classy bridal look.
This bride looks gorgeous with short hair. 

Stunning if you have natural long hair

Relax your short hair and add a birdcage veil... no need for a weave!
For more natural hair inspiration, check out our Crown & Glory board on Pinterest. Let's celebrate our African hair for 2014 and beyond!!!

Tuesday 25 February 2014

Wedding Blues

It's been a tremendously long time since we posted anything on this blog, from the time one of us got married:) and the other got engaged it's been crazy, but we still do much pinning on Pinterest which shows that we aren't dead. hahaha

What I want to talk about in today's blog is something that I think enough brides go through but never know how to put a finger to... Wedding blues:(
Now there are two types of wedding blues, the pre and the post, I am going to mainly talk about the pre as I have experience on that....



It's all so very confusing really when what is supposed to be the happiest time of your life kinda pulls a fast one on you and all of a sudden you feel gloomy. You see this one big day is associated with so much, family reunions, unresolved conflict, financial strife, you name it, Wedding planning and the day itself is like the battleground that hasn't been there since the last family wedding or funeral.

And so it starts you tell your family your 'friend wants to come and marry you (lol for those foreign to this concept let's just say, you are engaged) Everyone is really excited, well most of them are, your parents especially (in a normal set up) Some start cooking up bride prices in their heads and enquiring what sort of work does this 'friend' of yours do.... Then the big traditional wedding day comes, drumroll please because the drama begins, your cousin's uncle's niece's grandpa's whatever shows up from nowhere whom you haven't seen in ages and that is really for a good reason too, why you haven't seen him in a while. Now that something exciting is happening everyone has an opinion and everybody really must have a say regardless of where they've been all these years or what not. Everybody wants to be invited to the big white wedding, oh did I say big? yes I did say Big, that you probably have to pay for.
At this point you look at the vision that you had for your wedding and what seems to be going on around it, and slowly but surely you begin to lose it. Everyone is calling and asking when their wedding invite is coming, who is doing the flowers? did you find a dress? did you do this, did you do that? I totally get your concern but what you do not realise is there's 1 of me and 500 of you asking pretty much the same thing over and over. This then leads to what I call shut down mode, where you just go blank or else you will go bonkers. There seems to be this weird heaviness that you cannot describe how or where it got there and you begin to just float.. Wedding blues. Is there a way to avoid them? A friend said just go to court and get married there you would so avoid them, another said play along, agree with everything they say ( though you might end up throwing a circus instead of a wedding) another said , stand your ground, let them know who's boss.... I don't know really, the purpose of this blog is not to give a solution to the wedding blues thing but to actually inform all brides out there that you are not crazy but you could feel a tad bit under the weather before your wedding, it's not unique to you so please don't go throw yourself over the bridge, they do say that after all is said and done and you are standing at that altar about to marry your best friend, everything will be worth it. Clear cut diamonds really have to go through the rough, what''s a testimony without the test!

Keep your head up high dear bride and smile smile smile because God and your hubby to be loves you, focus on those seemingly small little things that make you happy and you are looking forward to, such as; your walk down the aisle, rather than the relative who had a mouthful to say to you, think of those lovely flowers you will have, the look on your husband's face when he sets his eyes upon you, his precious gem...
Above all try not to lose too much sleep over 'The day' and forget about 'the Days' which is your actual marriage. One person said to me , when you go for your honeymoon, enjoy it, have tons of fun, unwind, it's your love vacation, you earned it