Yes You Can Still Have Your Dream Wedding

With all the government changes regarding weddings in 2020, we had couples in a complete state of confusion and distress, not knowing what to do. There were couple breakups, wedding cancellations, postponements and lots of date changes. It was alotdotcom.

One particular wedding we did became a hot topic on our Instagram. We had about 2 weeks to fully prepare for this wedding because of the need to wait for the ‘green light’ from parliament, as decisions from the government kept chopping and changing in reaction to everything that was happening.

The couple had to reduce their guest count from 400 to about 10% of that AND change their venue! The original venue was much too large and incredibly expensive. Our couple had paid a deposit that was low enough for them to be prepared to forfeit. It didn’t make sense to pay for such a large venue and not be able to use all of its space. They then decided to use the bride’s church building for the wedding ceremony and reception instead as that was all that was available at such short notice.

All white wedding décor by Afmena Events

Because of the reduced scale of the wedding, they saved a considerable amount of money from what they were originally going to spend. I mean, imagine the cost implications of going from 400 to 30 guests? Yes you heard me correctly, the original guest count was 400. But it's not surprising seeing as both the bride and groom are musicians. The bride (also a pastor’s daughter) is one third of the Gospel group Shekinah Sings and the groom, one quarter of the group The Compozers.

So we had the challenge of completely transforming the church venue for the ceremony, then turning it all around again for the reception held in the same room! It truly was an impressive transformation…even if I do so say so myself! All in all it took three days work and great collaboration with Platinum Ace Events for the production. I am so proud of my amazing team here at A F M E N A.

The wedding was livestreamed and watched by friends, fans and loved ones all across the world. We received so many questions and enquiries about the wedding afterwards that I actually invited the couple to do an Instagram Live with me to share their wedding story and journey. It was such an encouraging, heart-warming REAL conversation. In the words of the couple themselves, despite everything, it was their dream wedding.

David and Heavilyn completely trusted us to achieve their vision. Watch the video to see how it all came together and their room reveal reaction. What you think? Did we rise to the challenge?

 Afia Bayayi x