WEDDING BLOG

An Italian garden dinner and Japanese Ikebana don’t immediately sound like two halves of the same wedding mood board. For Michelle and Raymond, that was exactly the point. Their Cape Town vineyard wedding paired grapes, lemons, candlelight, and a long table on the lawn with orchids, pastel florals, fortune cookies, and Japanese-inspired arrangements. Even the ceremony and reception had completely different palettes.

The couple met while working at Triggerfish Animation Studios. Neither was particularly looking for a relationship, but a colleague happened to mention that the new guy, Raymond, was sharing coconut biscuits. Michelle found a reason to “coincidentally” cross paths with him. “He probably thought it was just a friendly chat,” they recall. “But truthfully, someone was just waiting for the offer of a biscuit.”

The biscuit led to waffles with friends, longer hangouts, phone calls, and conversations about everything from K-dramas and movies to food and travel. Within a few months, they realized their outlooks on life lined up surprisingly well. “We just gelled like best friends and made each other feel loved and supported,” they say.

The celebration at Laborie Wine Estate was kept to just 38 guests, leaving room for the details they cared about most. There were three outfit changes, flower men instead of flower girls, a guest portrait board everyone could draw on, and an after-hours cellar stocked with s’mores and ramen. With Michelle working as an art director, they approached the wedding much like a creative project, combining ideas they loved rather than narrowing everything down to one.

What We Love About This Cape Town Vineyard Wedding

• Two completely different looks for the ceremony and reception, moving from greens and whites to pastel Ikebana-inspired florals
• A single long dinner table dressed with fruit, candles, orchids, and colorful arrangements
• Handmade fortune cookies with a quote or message waiting for every guest
• Two of Michelle’s best friends serving as “flower men” and kicking off the ceremony with a choreographed aisle dance
• A late-night cellar with a fireplace, pajamas, slippers, s’mores, ramen noodles, and games

Featured Vendor:
Natalie Heckmann

Combining Two Very Different Wedding Mood Boards

The original brief for their Cape Town vineyard wedding was really two separate ideas. One was an Italian garden dinner with candles, grapes, lemons, and the looseness of a summer meal outside. The other was more minimal: Japanese Ikebana, Asian garden references, and pastel color. “We had no idea how any vendor would be able to take these two mood boards from us and combine them,” Michelle says.

Instead of forcing everything into one look, they divided the day. The ceremony stayed pared back in white, cream, sage, and olive. The reception shifted into pinks, lilacs, oranges, yellows, orchids, fruit, and more playful arrangements. Paradiso Floral Design connected the two at the reception. “They balanced the Italian garden wedding with the Ikebana Japanese colors and look with the fruits so well,” Michelle says.

The combination also had a personal connection. Raymond is German, while Michelle is Filipino-Taiwanese, making the mix of European garden references and Asian design influences particularly fitting for them.

The Guest List Stayed At 38, But The Details Kept Growing

Keeping the wedding intimate didn’t mean keeping it simple. Michelle and Raymond handmade bows for the chairs and signage, created a portrait welcome board where guests could draw their own faces, and placed individual fortune cookies at each setting. Parasols and Asian hand fans doubled as practical additions for the summer weather and favors guests could take home.

There was also a Polaroid station and a seat reserved for Michelle’s mother, who died when Michelle was two. Michelle made a long fabric message for her to place there.

Instead of flower girls, two of Michelle’s college best friends became flower men, dressed in pink shirts, rolled sleeves, black trousers, and sunglasses. They opened the ceremony with a choreographed dance before the bridesmaids and Michelle made their entrances.

Their Favorite Ceremony Moment Wasn’t On The Timeline

Michelle and Raymond skipped a traditional first look but found ways to see each other without spoiling the reveal. They ate breakfast together, exchanged letters and gifts, and later held hands from opposite sides of a door. Then came the ceremony.

As soon as Michelle reached Raymond at the end of the aisle, the two automatically leaned in for a hug and kiss. Their officiant had to stop them because they hadn’t actually reached that part yet. “We felt like kids that got caught and laughed it off and giggled,” Michelle says.

Later, while their officiant stepped forward to tell guests part of their story, Michelle and Raymond became distracted talking to each other. She eventually turned around and called them out for not paying attention.

Using Fashion To Separate The Ceremony From The Party

Fashion followed the same two-part logic as the decor. Michelle chose a full, classic ceremony gown that gave her the “Cinderella” silhouette she had pictured, then changed into a shorter silk reception look better suited to a hot summer garden dinner. Detachable elements gave her another variation later in the evening.

Raymond had his green suit custom-made during a trip to Vietnam. Its lining featured a silver Asian-inspired floral pattern, while an orchid boutonnière connected his look to Michelle’s bouquet and the Ikebana references at dinner.

The wedding party’s looks evolved during fittings, too. Michelle initially pictured matching satin dresses and slick buns for her bridesmaids but pivoted to different pink-toned, Bridgerton-inspired dresses and hairstyles suited to each person. “If there was any dress style a bridesmaid didn’t feel good in, I’d pivot,” Michelle says.

For her own look, she paired Hollywood waves with Korean-inspired makeup: softer brows, plenty of blush, lightly defined lips, and individual lashes. Finding the right makeup artist took three months and three trials before friends recommended Lindy-Lin.

Getting A Planner Six Months In Took The Pressure Off

Michelle began planning about a year ahead using a customized Notion template to organize the budget and checklist. She handled much of the admin while Raymond took care of pickups, deliveries, and other action items.

As an art director, Michelle also created a Miro board, asset sheets, and top-down floor plans showing where everything should go. But around six months in, managing work alongside vendor emails and sourcing became too much. They hired Jenny and the team at Nearest and Dearest to take over sourcing and eventually day-of coordination. “I was very hands-on but I still let the team pitch their creative visions,” Michelle says.

Finding A Venue With Enough Lawn Changed The Search

Michelle and Raymond visited several properties and received quotes from seven before finding Laborie Wine Estate. Its Dutch manor house and two large lawn areas meant they could create separate settings for the ceremony and dinner without paying for indoor spaces they weren’t planning to use.

For their Cape Town vineyard wedding, the manor lawn became the ceremony site, while another stretch of grass beside the vines held their single long reception table. There was also a cellar available if the weather changed, plus on-site accommodations and separate spaces for both wedding parties.

Their budget prioritized venue, food, attire, flowers, and atmosphere. Dinner included three courses, canapés, a charcuterie harvest table, and dessert, followed later by s’mores and noodle cups in the cellar.

“No matter how many details or little things, it’s more about the atmosphere or ‘vibe’ or mood that people will remember on the day,” Michelle says. “They will remember our love and the feeling of the day and, of course, the food.”

Dinner Started With Cake And Ended With Ramen

After signing their marriage documents inside the manor, Michelle changed dresses before joining everyone on the lawn. She and Raymond entered to Maroon 5’s “Sugar” and went straight into cutting their three-tier vintage-style cake topped with red cherries. Even the flavors reflected their different preferences. Raymond got hazelnut chocolate and coffee in the lower tiers, while the top leaned toward Michelle’s preference for lighter flavors with lemon. Dinner unfolded along one table for all 38 guests, surrounded by fairy lights. Later, people moved into the cellar for snacks, tea, games, s’mores, and ramen.

There were small problems along the way. A detachable piece from Michelle’s dress briefly disappeared. Her gown needed last-minute steaming. And despite worrying about timing during hair and makeup, Michelle ended up ready for the ceremony 20 minutes early. “Things are going to happen,” she says. “No wedding is perfect. All brides have hiccups. Just stay calm and know it’s not about anything else but the two of you.”

Planning This Cape Town Vineyard Wedding Taught Them When To Ask For Help

Michelle’s biggest practical recommendation is to get organized early and recognize when the systems you’ve built are no longer enough. Monthly checklists, calendars, careful tracking of deposits and amended quotes, and checking exactly what the venue fee included helped keep things organized. Mood boards and floor plans made it easier to communicate with vendors, while a detailed shot list gave photographer Natalie Heckmann useful references without restricting her creatively.

And despite successfully planning much of the first six months herself, Michelle would bring in professional help earlier if she were doing it again. “Get a planner earlier on,” she advises. “The first six months were okay for me, but after that we needed help.”

Her other advice is simpler: make room in the budget for the things you’d genuinely miss, research vendors beyond price, and leave some flexibility for plans to change. Or, as Michelle puts it: “Be yourselves, be selfish, be you.”