Suikerbossie Wedding Flowers, Hout Bay

Their story

A Suikerbossie wedding in Hout Bay, with a little Australia in the flowers

Fabulous Flowers & Gifts did the flowers for Danni and Lewt's Suikerbossie wedding on Thursday, 29 August 2024, at the venue on the hill above Hout Bay. Danni and Lewt planned the flowers from Brisbane, Australia, and landed in Cape Town five days before the wedding. Josie van Aswegen worked from our Claremont studio, proposed hydrangeas, roses, delphiniums and lisianthus, and at Danni's request added penny gum so that the flowers carried a little of their Australian home.

Danni and Lewt's brief for Suikerbossie was gentle on purpose. Danni wanted nothing that would take away from the view, so Josie planned tall flute vases of loose, flowing flowers for the venue's plinth tables, the arbour was filled out at Lewt's request, and Danni and her sister carried bouquets styled from a single reference photograph. Their flower girl was offered a small crown or a posy. The wedding shows how a wedding florist in Cape Town can plan everything by email, for a couple who arrive five days before the wedding.

I · May 2024

Planning a Cape Town wedding from overseas, one mood board at a time

Danni and Lewt were living in Brisbane when they began planning a wedding in Cape Town. Between us lay the Indian Ocean and eight hours on the clock.

Danni sent a mood board and a set of reference photographs. We could not walk her through the buckets in the studio or hold a stem up beside her dress, so the pictures did that for us. They showed us the shapes she liked and the colours she kept returning to.

On 16 May Josie sent her first proposal: hydrangeas, roses, delphiniums, lisianthus "and other lovely blooms". She also said, plainly, that cosmos would not be in season for a late August wedding. It was a small sentence, and an important one. Part of our job is to say early what the season will give and what it won't, so that nobody falls in love with a flower that cannot come.

The list itself was cool and soft. The full, rounded heads of hydrangea. The upright spires of blue delphinium. Roses for weight, and lisianthus for the way its ruffled petals move. On paper it already looked like the coast on a clear evening.

II · The next day

Wedding flowers with eucalyptus, for a taste of Brisbane

Danni wrote back the following day with a single request. She wanted gum leaves in the flowers, for an Australian flavour. Josie added penny gum to the plan.

We love this kind of request more than almost any other. A wedding in Cape Town for a couple who live in Australia sits between two homes, and flowers can say so without anyone needing a sign. Eucalyptus has a smell that anyone who has lived among gum trees knows at once, sharp and clean and faintly medicinal. Tuck it into a bouquet and the bouquet smells of somewhere.

Penny gum has small, round, silver-blue leaves that run along the stem like a string of coins. It is a eucalyptus, and eucalyptus is Australian by birth, though it has grown in South Africa for well over a century. That felt right for this couple: something from their home, at home here too.

It is also one of the most forgiving foliages we work with. It holds up out of water better than most greenery, keeps its colour through a long day, and its blue-grey tone sits easily beside blue delphinium and white flowers. In Danni's flowers it did what good foliage should. It softened the edges, gave the white somewhere to rest, and carried a little of Brisbane into Hout Bay.

“some gum leaves to include an Australian flavour as we are currently living in Brisbane”
Danni, May 2024

III · Chelsea

A destination wedding in Cape Town, planned across three continents

Three days after the gum leaves were settled, on 20 May, Josie flew to London for the Chelsea Flower Show. For a fortnight the wedding had a bride in Brisbane, a florist in London and a venue in Hout Bay.

Danni replied: "How exciting!! Its an event definitely on my bucket list, what a fabulous experience". It is the kind of note that reminds us why we like the people we work for. She was in the middle of planning her own wedding from the far side of the world, and she still stopped to be glad for someone else.

Josie came home full of it. "I saw so many beautiful flowers over there. My senses were completely bombarded," she wrote on 3 June. Every florist needs that now and then, a week of looking at nothing but flowers, so that the eye resets and comes back to the studio a little sharper than it left.

For a destination wedding in Cape Town, distance is usually what couples worry about most. In practice it matters less than they fear. A clear mood board and a venue team that knows its own spaces carry most of the weight. Our event and wedding florists plan this way often, and the rest is trust. Danni gave us hers early.

Blue and white flower arbour at Danni and Lewt's Suikerbossie ceremony in Hout Bay, with a reading at the microphone and a little girl in white tulle — Under the flower arbour

IV · The details

A bridal bouquet, an arbour and a flower crown, maybe

Danni's bouquet, and her sister's as maid of honour, were styled from a reference photograph Danni sent. One picture, two bouquets, the same soft shape carried by two sisters. If you are still looking for yours, our notes on finding your perfect bouquet are a good place to start.

A bouquet styled from the bride's own reference keeps the shape she already loves. Whatever Danni carried had to feel like hers, soft and unfussy rather than stiff or showy, and her photograph showed us how.

Lewt had a request of his own. He asked for more flowers on the arbour, similar to a reference he had found. We are always pleased when a groom has an opinion about the flowers. The arbour is where the vows are said and where the photographs are taken, and in the picture of the two of them kissing beneath it, the mountain darkening behind, you can see why he wanted it full. It is the same thinking behind our larger wedding arch flowers and installations.

Lewt and his best man were to wear buttonholes.

Their flower girl was offered a small flower crown or a posy, and Danni told us she was keen on a crown that day but could easily change her mind by the next. Leaving the choice open is the kindest plan.

V · The view

Suikerbossie wedding table flowers that leave room for the view

The venue supplies plinth tables, and Danni had one firm wish for them. She did not want flowers that would "detract from the view".

It is a wise instinct. A couple chooses a venue like Suikerbossie for what lies beyond the windows and the lawn, and the worst thing a florist can do is put a wall of flowers in front of it. Josie proposed tall flute vases holding loose, flowy arrangements of the same flowers as the bouquets, with soft greenery falling from them.

A flute vase is narrow, so it takes up very little of the sightline. Its height lets the flowers lift and move rather than sit in a dense mound, and guests standing at a plinth table can talk across it and look past it. It is one of the simplest ideas in our guide to wedding flowers for tables, and one of the most useful.

Using the bouquet flowers on the tables is a quiet habit of ours. It ties the room to the bride without anyone noticing why.

There is a kind of confidence in asking your florist to do less. Danni trusted the place she had chosen, and wanted the flowers to stand beside it, not in front of it.

A little girl in a white tulle dress twirls in the Suikerbossie reception room, with white and blue table flowers on the long table behind her — White and blue on the long table

Bride walking down the aisle at her Suikerbossie wedding in Hout Bay — Down the aisle at Suikerbossie

VI · 29 August

A late August wedding in Hout Bay, under the mountain at dusk

On 20 August Josie wrote to say she had checked in with the venue and everything was under control. Danni replied the next day: "getting very excited!! We arrive in Cape Town on Saturday."

They landed on Saturday 24 August. Five days later, on Thursday 29 August, they were married at Suikerbossie. For a couple flying in, that is a short week, and it is exactly why the florist and the venue need to have spoken before the plane lands.

The flowers were made in our Claremont florist studio and travelled over the mountain, the same road our Hout Bay flower deliveries take. Pieces like an arbour are always finished on site, where the light and the view can be judged properly.

The photographs tell the rest. Danni walking down the aisle on the arm of an older gentleman in a suit. The two of them under the arbour, the mountain going blue behind them, a guest holding a small child at the edge of the frame. Then walking out together through their guests, and later, the first dance in the reception room.

In the dusk pictures the white flowers on the arbour still hold their shape after the sky has started to fade. That is the thing about pale flowers in low light. They are the last to disappear.

VII · October

Wedding photographs from the first look, five weeks later

On 4 October Danni sent us photographs from their first look, with a short note: "you all did such an amazing job!! We were so so happy".

A first look is a private few minutes, before the ceremony and the guests, when a couple sees each other for the first time that day. It is often the moment the bouquet is seen properly, held still, with nobody else in the way. We were glad to be in those pictures, even if only as the flowers in her hands.

We think about this wedding whenever we pick up a stem of penny gum. A couple from Brisbane, a hill above Hout Bay, and a few silver leaves to join the two together. Weddings that cross an ocean need small threads like that. They are easy to miss, and they are often what people remember.

So if you are planning from far away, tell us where you live now. A leaf, a colour or a scent from home can travel with you, and it will mean more on the day than anything we could invent.

“you all did such an amazing job!! We were so so happy”
Danni, October 2024

Danni and Lewt's first dance in the reception room at Suikerbossie, Hout Bay — The first dance

Blue delphinium, white blooms and soft greenery from Danni and Lewt's Suikerbossie wedding flowers

The flowers

Danni and Lewt's wedding flowers, piece by piece

Bridal bouquet: Styled from Danni's own reference photograph: soft and unfussy white roses with olive leaves.
Maid of honour: A bouquet for Danni's sister, styled from the same reference so the two sisters matched.
Arbour: Filled out with more flowers at Lewt's request, following a reference he shared, for the vows and the photographs.
Plinth tables: Planned with tall flute vases holding loose, flowy arrangements of the bouquet flowers and soft greenery, kept slim so the view stayed open. See more event flowers.
Buttonholes: For Lewt and his best man.
Flower girl: A small flower crown or a posy, the flower girl's choice.
Gum leaves: Penny gum through the arbour and reception flowers, added at Danni's request for an Australian flavour.

Delphinium blueSoft whitePenny gumGarden greenDusk slate

In the mix

Bridal bouquet: white roses with olive leaves; Maid of honour: white roses with eucalyptus; Buttonholes: white rose with olive; Arbour and reception flowers: white roses, blue hydrangea, blue and purple delphinium and white chrysanthemums, with penny gum and olive.

Danni and Lewt walking out through their guests after the ceremony at Suikerbossie, Hout Bay

The place

Suikerbossie wedding venue, Hout Bay: planning the flowers

Suikerbossie sits at 1 Victoria Drive, on the hill above Hout Bay, and of all the Hout Bay wedding venues it is one couples choose for the view: across the valley to Chapman's Peak and the bay, with Llandudno to the west and Table Mountain behind. The venue names its spaces after that view, with ceremonies at Hout Bay Cove, pre-drinks on the Llandudno Lawn and the reception in the Main Venue. In late winter the light goes early and softly, which is why so many of Danni and Lewt's photographs have that blue, end-of-day quality.

For a florist the first practical point is what the venue already provides. Here that included plinth tables, so the table flowers were planned around them from the start: tall, narrow vases that sit comfortably on a small surface and keep the sightlines open. Ask your venue for a list of what is supplied before you finalise your flowers.

The drive from our Claremont studio over the mountain to Hout Bay is a short one, so arrangements can travel finished and be checked again on arrival. Anything built at full size, like an arbour, we dress on site, because how it looks against the real backdrop is the only thing that matters. Pale flowers are worth considering for an evening ceremony here. White, cream and soft blue hold their shape in fading light long after deeper colours turn dark.

If you are still choosing, our guide to Cape Town wedding venues and our round-up of the best venues in Cape Town are good places to begin, and our wedding florist team is happy to talk through any venue on your list.

FloralsFabulous Flowers & Gifts, Claremont (Josie van Aswegen, since 1999)

VenueSuikerbossie, Hout Bay

Planning notes

Planning a Suikerbossie wedding from overseas: what this wedding taught us

Send pictures, not adjectives
Danni's mood board and reference photographs did more than any description could. When you are planning from another country, pictures are how your florist sees what you see. Include one or two things you do not want, too.
Bring a piece of home
The penny gum was Danni's idea, and it made the flowers personal without a single extra arrangement. A foliage, a flower or a colour from where you live now can sit quietly inside the design. Our notes on wedding flower symbolism have more ideas.
Let the view win
At a venue chosen for its outlook, ask for table flowers that are slim and lifted. Tall flute vases were the plan for Danni's plinth tables, pretty without blocking anything.
Ask what the season will give
Josie flagged in May that cosmos would not be in season for late August. Knowing that early meant the plan was built on flowers that would actually be there.
Leave the little ones a choice
For a young flower girl, plan a crown or a posy and let her decide on the day. It saves tears, and a simple flower crown is easy to make small and light.

Good to know

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you plan a wedding in Cape Town from overseas?

Yes, a Cape Town wedding can be planned from overseas: Danni and Lewt arranged their Suikerbossie wedding flowers from Brisbane and arrived in Cape Town on Saturday 24 August 2024, five days before it. A mood board, reference photographs and clear emails gave Fabulous Flowers everything needed, and Josie van Aswegen checked details with the venue directly. Our Cape Town wedding flowers team plans this way for couples abroad.

Can a Claremont florist do flowers for a Suikerbossie wedding in Hout Bay?

Yes, Fabulous Flowers did the flowers for Danni and Lewt's Suikerbossie wedding in Hout Bay on 29 August 2024, from our studio in Claremont. Hout Bay is a short drive over the mountain from Claremont. Bouquets and buttonholes are made in the studio, and larger pieces like an arbour are finished at Suikerbossie, where they can be judged against the view.

Where is Suikerbossie, and which spaces does it use for weddings?

Suikerbossie is a wedding venue at 1 Victoria Drive, on the hill above Hout Bay, looking across the valley to Chapman's Peak and the bay. Suikerbossie holds ceremonies at Hout Bay Cove, pre-drinks on the Llandudno Lawn and receptions in the Main Venue. Fabulous Flowers did the flowers for Danni and Lewt's Suikerbossie wedding on 29 August 2024, keeping the table flowers slim so the view stayed open.

What wedding flowers are available in Cape Town in late August?

Hydrangeas, roses, delphiniums and lisianthus were Josie van Aswegen's proposal for Danni and Lewt's Suikerbossie wedding on 29 August 2024, and on the day the arbour and reception flowers were white roses, blue hydrangea, blue and purple delphinium and white chrysanthemums, with penny gum and olive. Josie advised that cosmos would not be in season. Availability changes from year to year, so ask your florist for a seasonal list for your exact date. Roses are dependable in every season.

Can you use eucalyptus or gum leaves in a bridal bouquet?

Yes, eucalyptus and gum leaves work well in a bridal bouquet, and penny gum is one of the Fabulous Flowers team's favourite foliages. Penny gum has small round silver-blue leaves, a clean scent and holds up well out of water. Fabulous Flowers added it to Danni's flowers for her Suikerbossie wedding in August 2024, for an Australian flavour. It pairs especially well with blue delphinium and white bouquets.

What table flowers work at a Suikerbossie wedding without blocking the view?

Tall, slim vases are the best table flowers for a Suikerbossie wedding because they keep the view open. Suikerbossie supplies plinth tables, and for Danni and Lewt's wedding on 29 August 2024, Josie van Aswegen of Fabulous Flowers planned tall flute vases with loose, flowy arrangements of the bouquet flowers and soft greenery. A narrow vase keeps the sightline open while still giving the table height and movement.

Which Hout Bay wedding venues work well with flowers?

Hout Bay wedding venues with a strong view, like Suikerbossie, work best with flowers that frame the outlook rather than compete with it. For Danni and Lewt's Suikerbossie wedding on 29 August 2024, Fabulous Flowers filled out the ceremony arbour and planned light, lifted table flowers in tall flute vases. Our guide to choosing flowers for any event helps you match the flowers to the setting.

Your wedding

Tell us about your day

If you are planning a Cape Town wedding from the other side of the world and want a little of home in the flowers, send us your mood board and Josie will take it from there.

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