Mokete & Jaqui – September 2008

I nearly didn’t do their wedding.  Jaqui contacted me long before the wedding and I never heard from her again until a month or two before the wedding date.  I normally don’t do weddings on such short notice, but she begged.  Seems she thought that she booked me even though they did not pay a deposit or fill in a service agreement.

She got dressed at her mother’s house just outside Polokwane (Pietersburg).  The caterer decided not to pitch and her mother and her friends had to cook up a storm.

The wedding service was held in the Lutheran church in Polokwane.  A plain and simple little church with LOTS of atmosphere and warm natural lighting.  The white ceiling helped us to augment the natural light here and there with our bounced strobes.

Afterwards we spent an hour or two at the Meropa Casino outside Polokwane to get some shots of the wedding party.  We arranged beforehand with their local and regional management to go and take shots there on the wedding day.  When we rocked up there, there were about five other wedding parties also taking pictures!

The reception was held in a lapa at the Polokwane Bird Sanctuary.  It was a tad small and about a third of the guests had to sit and stand outside.  As with it being a lapa and all, the thatch grass roof soaked up our flash units’ light like a sponge and we had to rely on slower shutter speeds and wider aperatures to get enough light into the camera bodies.

    

The one BIG difference between a stereotypical white wedding and a black wedding is the amount of dancing.  Mokete and Jaqui danced into the church, they danced out of the church, they danced in front of the reception venue, they danced into the reception venue and then when they did the opening dance, EVERYBODY joined within a minute or so.

There sure was a lot of dancing.  They had a live band as well.  These guys were excellent, but when I asked for a business card they just laughed…  I wonder what that was all about?