South African Handmade Wedding: Carin + Casper

bride and groom

Carin + Casper live in London and run a super rad design shop, Shotopop. They thought about going to Vegas to get married, but then decided to throw a huge party for their wedding instead – in South Africa! They planned the wedding weekend around what they liked most and what they thought their friends were really like. So that meant: good food (lots of it), movies, music, games, crazy cocktails and whiskey! Their wedding took place at the Old Mac Daddy in Elgin Valley, South Africa – such a super rad venue with breathtaking scenery, Scandinavian architecture, and 12 Airstream trailers that were imported from the US and designed into boutique rooms by South African artists. A bit more about their wedding weekend from Carin + Casper:

Our wedding started with a nice dinner on Friday night, followed by a few drinks and a movie screened on a sheet! Saturday morning guests could walk around and enjoy the amazing area. The garden party started at 3, and we both were there for the garden party as well. Garden games, live dixie jazz, delicious snacks and merriment in the afternoon sun. The 2 of us and the photographers ducked out for a quick shoot in the area, while our guests slowly moved to the deck, where we then had a short ceremony followed by amazing sunset cocktails. The rest of the night was dancing, eating, sitting around the pool, and more dancing and eating. We had a make your own pizza station as well as a constant supply of small dishes coming out of the kitchen. No formal table settings, but enough places for everyone to sit and eat, if they wanted to. What fun.

Big thanks to welovepictures for the gorgeous photos and congrats to Carin + Casper!

heels

geometric back

treehouse

airstream_venue

wedding

bride and groom

garden party

garden party

bride and groom

bride and groom

bride and groom

beige wedding dress

open back dress


Kind of majorly obsessed with Carin’s gown + necklace!

geometric jeweled back

bride and groom

waking to ceremony

ceremony

ceremony

Our Musical Choices

Processional: Kiss to Build a Dream On – Louis Armstrong

Recessional: Dixie Swingers playing whatever they wanted

First Dance: That’s What’s Up – Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

ceremony

bunting

ceremony

bunting

entrance

reception hall

green colored bottles

wildflowers

chalkboard

wildflowers

pizza sign

Our Favorite Memory From The Wedding

There are too many to single out one so we’ll make a list:
• When the Battles song came on absolutely everyone at the wedding started bouncing up an down. It was incredible, from young to old all joined in and bounced.
• The mini burgers! They were amazing!
• Carin’s uncle getting in the middle of a dance circle and boogying
• Dancing was amazing. Everyone partied till really late!
• The light during the ceremony
• The staff at the venue
• The Streamline Moonshine! A place where a few guests could taste some of our favorite whiskies from around the globe.

reception

wedding favor

bride and groom dancing

reception


We have to mention all the help we got. If it weren’t for our amazing support team of friends and family it never could have been the amazing weekend it was. Our friends, Pieter, Aldie and Erika cut and spray painted hundreds of meters of bunting. Carin’s mom made 50 pillowcases and blankets, sewed up all the bunting and made aprons for the staff to wear. Carin’s dad jumped in to string up hundreds of meters of lighting outdoors because the day the lighting designers came it was too rainy to hang them. Rachelle, his girlfriend, organized flowers and cushion stuffing. Casper’s mom and sister went to raid fields for flowers to make confetti. Erika ran around doing numerous errands, from extending a necklace chain, to folding hundreds of cones, to emptying pilchard cans and wrapping gifts. She also organized 2 amazing hen parties, one in Barcelona and one in South Africa. CF was integral in making the best wedding playlist ever and staying up till stupid o’clock in the morning putting the music in order song by song. Casper’s brother and his friend Mo were incredible over the weekend party, jumping in to do all the dirty work, hanging bunting, stuffing cushions in their cases and so on. As you can see, it was a very hands on wedding.

Our Advice To Those Planning Now

If you’re planning on doing everything yourself, make sure you have a really good support system, otherwise get a wedding planner! We’re sure it would have taken a lot of stress off, but at the same time, we’re so glad we did it ourselves. Also, if you’re planning the wedding from another country, use all the resources you have. The problem with South Africa is some of the best suppliers either don’t have websites or are really hard to find. Recommendations from our photographers was one of the key resources we used. And then don’t skimp on photography. I think one of the best things we spent money on was our amazing photographers. They captured such beautiful moments and are so exceptionally talented. The one thing i wish we had was a video of our first dance. We didn’t specifically want videography, but that specific moment we wish we had captured in motion.

venue name: Old Mac Daddy, Elgin Valley, South Africa // florals: Rachelle, Casper's dad's girlfriend bought all the flowers and then she roped designing and adding the laser cut leather, cut by Cut Laser Cut // bride's shoes: Dune // groom attire: Alexander McQueen, Trousers from David Mayer Naman and Shoes from Hudson and the tie we had made by a lovely lady in Brick Lane // paper goods: We designed the invitations ourselves (we're illustrators // catering: Brinny Breeze (Old Mac Daddy) // photography: welovepictures (more from their wedding here)

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