Wedding day!
Dan and the girls had a lovely morning getting ready at the wedding venue. We can’t share too many of the details just yet as we don’t want to steal any of the bride’s surprises before she has had a chance to share things herself, but it was a really lovely morning and everyone was very excited for the day ahead.
Back at Oluchi Lodge, Chris and the boys started the day with almost military precision. We have definitely learned on this trip that Isaac especially does much better when we can keep some sort of routine around him. With new places, new people, long days and everything else going on, if his sleep and food get too disrupted he really struggles. Knowing that the wedding was going to be a very big day, Chris set about trying to give him the best possible chance of making it through happily.
The boys had their usual breakfast first before heading up for the lodge breakfast, where they got to eat with their cousins. Gary, Ashleigh, Olivia and Mackenzie were all staying at Oluchi as well, along with a number of the other wedding guests, so it was a nice start to the morning with everyone together.
After breakfast it was back to the room to start getting Karl organised. Gary and Ashleigh then took Karl through to the wedding venue with the flower girls at around 11am, while Chris stayed behind with Isaac and started the important mission of getting him to sleep. Housekeeping arrived at almost exactly the same time, so Chris spent a while entertaining Isaac on some concrete stairs while the room was being cleaned before finally being able to get him settled.
Thankfully it all went reasonably well and Isaac went down for a really good sleep. Chris decided to rig up a rather creative baby-monitoring system, streaming audio between his computer and the iPad, which meant he could take the iPad out to the pool and have a pre-wedding swim with other wedding guests while still being able to hear Isaac. All in all, Isaac managed nearly two hours of sleep, which was about as good as we could have hoped for.
Meanwhile, Karl had arrived at the wedding venue with the flower girls, and that began the roughly three-hour challenge of keeping three small children entertained while hair and makeup were being done. Thank goodness for Alex, one of the bridesmaid’s husbands, who spent a lot of time chatting with Karl and helping to keep him occupied. Karl did look very smart in his little “Ring Security” outfit though, and was extremely pleased with himself.
Once Isaac woke up, Chris scrambled around figuring out his wedding clothes, got him dressed and loaded him into the rental car. Chris had decided to drive rather than rely on the return shuttle, mostly because the shuttle wasn’t due to leave until around 11pm and we suspected that might be a little late for Karl and Isaac.
Chris left in a bit of a panic shortly after the shuttles, thinking he might be running behind, and then somehow arrived at the wedding venue before everyone else. Apparently the shuttles had taken a somewhat creative route and stopped at a few places where there weren’t necessarily any guests to collect. But that is another story!
The wedding venue itself was absolutely perfect for Whitney. Anyone who knows Whitney knows how much she loves rocks, and the whole property was surrounded by interesting rock formations. Even from the chapel you looked out towards a beautiful rocky landscape, so it all felt very fitting.
And, because this is South Africa, there were also zebras wandering around the property and even milling around the car park, which was just fantastic.
Once the ceremony started, Vicki and Hugh once again came to our rescue with Isaac. They had come prepared with an extra bag full of treats and different things to distract him, and somehow managed to keep him quiet for the entire ceremony, which was about 40 minutes long. Anyone who knows how vocal Isaac can be will know that this was no small achievement! It also meant Chris was able to sit up the front with Karl once he had finished his very important job of kicking off the wedding.
The ceremony itself was beautiful and Karl did an amazing job in his very important role as ring security. After the ceremony there was lots of confetti, photos, mingling and celebrating before everyone moved through for dinner.
Dinner was really tasty, and then it was time for the party.
It turns out Karl is a bit of a dancing party animal, just like his mum. Whenever a good song came on — which, according to Karl, was basically every second song — he was straight back out on the dance floor. Karl and Dan spent a lot of the evening jumping around, dancing in circles and having an absolute blast.
When he couldn’t convince Mum to dance with him, he simply moved on to finding somebody else. He took a particular shine to a couple of the other guests and, in his usual charming way, had no trouble recruiting people to come out and dance with him. He had a fantastic time and would probably have happily stayed on the dance floor all night.
Vicki and Hugh were also a huge help with Isaac during the reception. By this stage he was already starting to become more than a handful, so having some extra people willing to entertain him and pass him around made a very big difference.
By around 7pm though, Isaac was definitely starting to hit the wall, which is getting pretty close to his normal bedtime. The hosts at the wedding venue very kindly managed to produce a baby cot for us, so once he had well and truly had enough, we were able to get him settled down to sleep.
That worked out brilliantly, as it meant Chris didn’t have to leave early with the boys. Instead, Isaac slept away while Chris patrolled back to check on him about every ten minutes, almost like clockwork, before returning to the reception to join in with the festivities.
It was a beautiful day, everything went really well and, most importantly, Whitney and Reggie looked incredibly happy.
We are still being a little careful with what wedding photos and details we share until Whitney and Reggie have had a chance to share things themselves, but we can safely say it was a very special day and we were very glad to be there for it.
Chris, Dan, Karl and Isaac