For about 4 years my wife and I have been working at a wedding venue making, serving and secretly eating the food. Running to different stations carrying crates of glasses and plates, trying to be as quiet as possible as to not disturb the guests. Seeing the bride before her soon-to-be husband carries a strange, magical feeling. Working at a wedding venue for so many years and then finally getting to live our own fairy tale day made me realize a couple of things that I'm fairly certain most bridal couples don't.
The Owl Cottage
Starting in 2013, me and my girlfriend (now wife) was asked to help at a friends' parents' wedding venue. They had a large wedding they had to host and didn't have enough staff to see to all the food and drinks. Fynbos Estate is about 40 km outside of Durbanville (Cape Town, South Africa, for my international readers). The venue is mainly a wine farm that produces an assortment of wines that they use at the events they host. Convenient.
The centrepiece of the venue is a large, run-down yet beautiful cottage attached to various buildings one would need to host second rate weddings. A restaurant, a (very impressive) garden, a chapel, a veranda, different bars, multiple building to host guests, entire cottages specifically used to house cutlery, a wedding-related storage area and a pavilion where receptions were usually held.
Running with Plates
We were thrown into the deep end. Our first event was so hectic, we didn't want to go back again, even though the pay was far above average. Nevertheless, when they asked for our help again we agreed. The pay was good, the People were nice, and the food was delicious. It seemed like a good idea at the time and, upon retrospect, our gut was telling us the truth. The time we would have there would change our lives forever.
The amount of steps we would take on a single day there would impress a long distance speed walker on a good day. We would carry plates of food through crowds of guests, hallways, sometimes bushes and between tables, cars, children and extremely lavished cakes. We would have to make good food, carry heavy decorations and sometimes work the bar. This was all expected of us coupled with a smile each time we would walk past a guest for a wedding, they are after all our guests.
Our friend, Lizzy, Me and my Wife
Being a lower-end staff member at a wedding venue is really a humbling experience. As you are creating something wonderful for someone else you are also watching them enjoy it while you have to continue dishing the buffet. Having a constant stream of Happily Ever Afters thrown in our faces, it eventually hit my wife that ours is taking its sweet time. She was permanently moved to the kitchen so she didn't have to see how another couple did what we couldn't.
Untill one day...
We got the OK
I proposed to her 26 September 2015. Both of us were students at the time. She was studying to become a teacher and I was studying classical music. We were given a date by our parents as both pairs were struggling financially and only had a small window for us to make our move into shared adulthood. We had to wait more than 2 years for our day, but it was written down and real, which was more than enough for us.
As we planned our wedding day, our years working at the Fynbos Estate paid off in more than just cash. The knowledge we gained doing other weddings gave us the know-how on the whats and what-nots of weddings. Through all the other weddings we saw everything that guests normally don't see and got a pretty good idea how the ideal wedding would play out. I like to think that we had an abnormal amount of test runs for our wedding day and we were able to completely relax when the big day finally came. We could focus on Absorbing the experience of getting married to each other. It was a fantastic day.
One thing we both noticed in the evening, while enjoying the reception, was the staff. At this point both of us had had quite a bit of wedding experience and we were unintentionally focusing on the staff members walking around serving our/their guests. We weren't judging their actions or their methods. We were both simply just sharing an unspoken, melancholic moment where we were finally having our big day yet we were staring at 'ourselves' handing food to our guests and returning to the kitchen. We glanced at one another and smiled, because we both knew how far we've come. It was a strange cocktail of sadness and happiness that I do not regret.