Pastors, dress designers and wedding organisers who have seen a spike in festive season weddings this year.
|||Durban - It’s the season to be jolly and get married.
So say pastors, dress designers and wedding organisers who have seen a spike in festive season weddings this year.
“April used to be the popular month to get married but it’s now shifting towards December,” said Durban fashion designer Terrence Bray.
Bray – who has had his hands full designing wedding dressing since the beginning of last month – said couples preferred this time of the year because of the festivities.
“Most families are together at this time of the year, so it makes it easier for guest to attend the wedding,” he said from his studio where he was putting the finishing touches to Amy Alcock’s dressing.
Alcock, a former Maris Stella matriculant, will exchange vows today with her fiancé Peter Carew at her old school chapel.
The couple, both 24, and former UCT students met three years ago as second-year BCom students.
An impulsive decision by Carew to change courses led to the union of the young lovebirds, who were born and bred in Durban.
They will exchange vows today in front of friends and family in one of the many festive season weddings around the city and province.
Alcock said had Carew gone ahead and enrolled for his first choice course, Business Science, their path would have never crossed.
“But fate took over and he changed his course and here we are getting ready to start the rest of our lives together,” she said of their wedding, which was organised by Bray, her artist mom Jeannie Kinsler and her two sisters, Laura and Gemma.
“Peter and I chose December because of the weather and the fact that all our family members would be around at this time of the year to share this day with us,” she said.
That was the reason most brides are choosing to walk down the aisle in December, said designer James Kalinde.
“November and December have definitely been the busiest time for me,” he said.
Kalinde’s sentiments were echoed by eThekwini Community Church pastor Vusi Dube who, said he’d been inundated with requests to officiate at weddings across the province.
“I have two weddings today and another two tomorrow,” said Dube, who charges R1 000 to conduct a wedding.
So popular is this time of the year with couples that some have even opted to get hitched during the week.
“This is a new trend that I’m seeing in the black community who in the past never got married during the week,” he said.
The annual salary bonus is also a contributing factor to couples wanting to exchange vows in December.
“More money, the more lavish a wedding is,” said Dube.
Krishnee Bala, a wedding co-ordinator from Grace Family Church in Umhlanga, said she too had had her hands full organising weddings over the past few weeks.
“Couples now prefer the festive season to get married as it is warmer, which is ideal for an outside or evening wedding,” she said.
Couples, said Bala, were also taking advantage of this season because most families members are together. “It makes the logistic side of things that much easier when everyone is close by, which ends up becoming a double celebration,” she said.
Independent on Saturday