Alex & Andrew

A Webersburg wedding morning in the 1786 manor house

The day began inside the manor house at Webersburg, a Cape Dutch building whose gable still carries the year it was built: 1786. In Catherine Mac's photographs the bride gets ready in a bedroom with a four-poster bed, a chandelier and a painted landscape mural across the wall. Her dress hangs from the chandelier itself.

The bridal party wore pale blue pyjamas, and there was Webersburg bubbly on hand. On a dark wooden dining table stood a scatter of small glass bud vases, each holding a few stems: white roses, pale blue hydrangea, white stock, pale blue delphinium, white veronica and a sprig of eucalyptus.

We love bud vases on a wedding morning. They are the smallest flowers of the day and often the first anyone sees, and they set the colours long before the bouquet arrives. On dark old wood, white roses look almost lit from inside, and blue hydrangea reads cooler and paler than it does in the bucket.

A manor house is a generous place to get ready in, and flowers there only have to belong to the room. From our Claremont florist studio, we pack the little morning pieces with as much care as the arch.

A wedding flower arch on the lawn, under the oaks

The ceremony was set on the lawn under the oaks, with the mountains in view: white folding chairs, white parasols for guests and an aisle lined with petals.

At the front stood an open floral arch: two tall curved columns, densely covered in white and pale blue hydrangea, white chrysanthemums and eucalyptus, standing on a round white platform. Rather than a closed arbour, it was a frame with the sky and the mountain left in it.

We like an open arch outdoors for a simple reason. A view is the best thing a garden ceremony has, and a solid frame can hide it. Two curved columns mark where the couple stands, hold enough flowers to read from the back row and leave the horizon clear. It is one of our favourite flower installations for a winelands lawn.

The platform matters more than it looks. On grass, a tall structure needs a level, stable base, and a slightly raised place to stand means guests at the back see faces rather than shoulders.

Along the aisle stood two fluted white pedestals, each holding a big arrangement of white hydrangea, white roses and blue delphinium, built on the scale of our luxury flower arrangements. The bridesmaids walked down between them in pale blue, so the blue of the delphinium and the blue of the gowns meet in the same frame.

Delphinium is the flower that makes a white and blue wedding feel tall. Its spires carry colour upward, where hydrangea carries it outward, and white roses hold the middle. We explain what these flowers have traditionally meant in our guide to wedding flower symbolism.

A Stellenbosch wedding florist in the hall: garlands, candles and fairy lights

The reception was held in a large white hall draped with white fabric and fairy lights, with gold chiavari chairs and long tables in white linen. A room like that could take almost any colour. Here it took the same two as the morning.

Along the top table ran a long, low garland of white roses, white hydrangea, blue delphinium, white lisianthus, white phalaenopsis orchids and eucalyptus. Keeping it low means the couple can see the room and the room can see them. On the guest tables, low arrangements sat with pillar candles in glass. We share more ideas like these in our guide to wedding flowers for tables.

Tall fluted pedestal arrangements rose above the tables under the fairy lights, lifting flowers above a seated crowd. Pedestals are among the easiest pieces to move from ceremony to reception, something we plan for often in our event flowers.

Each table was named on an arched card with a photograph of the couple at a place they had travelled to. We like flowers that leave room for cards like these, low enough to keep them in view.

The cake was three white textured tiers decorated with pale blue hydrangea, standing on a wine barrel. Later the couple were photographed by a wine barrel between two arrangements, which is about as Stellenbosch as a frame can get.