Never been prouder of being a Gleek than today. In fact, I’d say I’m rather breathless at it all!

Kurt on stage...it was all glitz!

* It’s also been a sad day. I got news this evening that one of Windhoek’s funniest men decided to quit life. Completely unexpected and no one knew that anything was wrong – he was all smiles as usual until this morning when he decided that he couldn’t carry on living anymore. RIP darling. We never understand why people do these things, but we have to find solace in the fact that we’ll never understand another’s pain completely. May you now find the relief that life couldn’t offer you. xxx

How do you get a PR-poppie such as myself to go mentally wonky? You tell her to plan her own perfect-princess wedding, of course! The brief? Seventy guests from around the world in a setting so perfect, so remote and so beautiful that it will impress the socks off everyone and leave a lasting impression that is indicative of the interesting and (somewhat) quirky couple getting married in said setting. And all of it on a tight budget.

Of course.

Months of planning, hours of Skype calls to Mamma M in Namibia and a couple of teary breakdowns later, our perfect wedding week arrived! We started on Tuesday the 15th of February with dinner at Joe’s Beerhouse in Windhoek, the best steakhouse in the world, according to me (and many others). The next morning at 9am, a bus with 45 guests departed Windhoek for two days safari at the gorgeous Erindi Game Lodge. Suffice to say that we had two game drives a day, that all food and ALL BOOZE was included and that we were staying at a fantastic 5-star lodge where afternoon tea outshines the buffet dinner, which outshines the buffet breakfast, which aims to be as good as the buffet lunch – to answer your question, yes, the dress did fit a little tighter than it did before safari!

On the Friday the 18th – coincidentally also Sue’s birthday (so old, so old, so old) – the bus departed the game lodge and made its (hot and sweaty – Mr A/C decided not to play along for this part of the journey) way to the coastal town of Swakopmund. A quaint German settlement in the middle of nowhere with the most breathtaking sanddunes you can imagine. We had a very small celebration that evening as Sue was beyond tired and feeling a little cranky about everything. (As brides do. Do they?)

Saturday the 19th was a frenzy of friends, rushing around for the last couple of plans and then a manicure, eyebrow wax (I know…) and then off to where we were getting dressed where my friend and the world’s-most-fabulous-designer Kobus Dippenaar worked his magic on my hair and make-up. The world’s-most-fabulous-photographer Susan Nel (great name, btw) arrived at 3pm to start capturing every moment and succeeded way beyond my wildest expectations!The bride and her entourage, made up of best friends and sisters, left for the ceremony on the beach and as we got into the car Mama M called, saying: “Just wanted to let you know that the guests are all here and ready for you…and, darling, it’s windy.” “No problem, Mom”, I quipped back. (Nothing was going to ruin my day.) “No,” she said, “you don’t understand…it’s really, reaaally windy.” Oh boy.

Upon arrival I quickly got what she meant…My veil was blowing in the wind in a not-so-romantic way and chair covers (and chairs) had been blown into the air. The dune sand was quickly covering up the red carpet and my guests all looked a little, uhm, windswept. But in a way it was perfect. No one could be uptight after surviving that wind! And my hair had so much Elnett in it that no wind was going to move a lock!

We had a quick ceremony on the beach and then our guests were moved to the secret location while we went off to take some photos. Drinks on the beach? Not so much!

I love this photo of my 80-year old gran...Love.

After taking photos on the beach and on the jetty, we made our way into the dunes where we had another stop before starting to search for our secret spot amongst the dunes.Now, in all the months of planning. In all the many emails and phone calls. In all my many ‘to do’ lists and delegated tasks. In all those things, the ONLY aspect of this wedding I didn’t plan was printing out the instructions to getting to our secret location, or making sure that someone knew exactly where we were going. Picture the scene…The bride, her groom and her maid of honour along with our ‘driver’ – a dear friend of Mama M who graciously offered his services and remained patient throughout – following the photographers in their small Yaris, heading into every possible turnoff amongst the dunes and back out again. We could not find this effing tent. My lip grew longer and longer as I pictured myself, all dressed up and newly ‘ringed’, having dinner at the local ‘Brauhaus’ in Swakopmund. After all that planning we were not going to get to celebrate our wedding day with our guests! Ugh.

And, just before I ruined my make-up with a big cry, we found it! Halleluja! Only 45 minutes late and still in time for sundowners. Hooray!

From there on the evening was a blur of perfection. The world’s-best-event-planners Sharmine and Colin Livingstone of Desert Catering had gone beyond our wildest expectations in putting together a party like no other.

For one night, Sue was a princess. And this, dear reader, is my happy ever after!

Please vote for us in the Sarie Bride of the Year competition by leaving a comment and ‘liking’ our entry on Facebook!
Just because I love them and would hugely recommend their services to anyone – here’s Sue’s Little Black Book for planning a wedding in Namibia:

• Dress, Hair, Make-up, Theme Concept, Table Cloths, Mental Support: Kobus Dippenaar Atelier
• Event Planning, Food and Mental Support: Colin and Sharmine at Desert Catering
• Photography and Mental Support: Susan Nel Photography
• Flowers…and Mental Support: Uwe at Der Blumenkorb
• Transport, Shuttle, Bus, Rental Cars: Anna at Sunshine Tours

My friend Lauren’s boyfriend Seun Adebiyi is facing the the battle of his life, and for his life. This 26-year old has leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant. Time is running low and because he is from Nigeria, finding a match remains an exceptional challenge. In addition to fearlessly facing leukemia, Seun is a super-hero in many other rights: he is a Yale Law School graduate, a massage therapist, a private pilot, and an Olympic hopeful (in the skeleton – which is similar to bob sledding – hello Cool Runnings!).

We need you to help raise awareness in the fight against leukemia and lymphoma. Only about 17% of African-Americans ever find a match.  We need help finding a match for Seun.

Seun’s employer, Goldman Sachs, will generously be sponsoring a bone marrow drive in New York City on January 10th. Goldman Sachs is also helping Seun take the search global, by sponsoring his travel to Nigeria, where he and his mother will host the first-ever Nigerian bone marrow drive.

If I haven’t yet convinced you that you need to register to become a bone marrow donor and tell everyone else to do the same, read this article in the  New York Times, and follow Seun’s blog here. If you have a blog, please help me spread the word by posting this on yours.

If you are not yet a registered donor, please register now at http://www.dkmsamericas.org/. All it takes is a simple cheek swab. You could save a life.

John has been taking his bike to work almost every day and we’ve gotten into the habit of taking them out when we go for brunch on the weekends or out to dinner at night. We’ve cycled over the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges to go visit Marcel in DUMBO and owning these bikes have really had such a positive impact on our lives over the past couple of months.

Dodging the yellow cabs and pedestrians in the city? Now that’s a whole different story!

Eri, John and Alice on their bikes

On Saturday we took our bikes on the train for the first time and headed out to New Jersey to go meet up with Eri and Alice (our US ‘mom’ and ‘dad’). Over the past two and a half years we’ve been out to their house plenty of times and the rule is always ‘Do whatever you want to entertain yourself’ – sometimes we’ve hung out at the pool, other times we’ve just had a BBQ on their lawn and on Saturday we decided to meet up with them and go for a long small town cycle.

This witch got her vacuum all tangled up!

We met Eri at the train station after a 40 minute train ride (and some hairy escalator ups and downs to navigate with the bicycles) and drove over to their place to meetup with Alice. After a long patio coffee catch-up, they took us on a tour of some typical small American towns with a local farmer’s market where the Halloween pumpkins were out in full force. Many of the houses already have their spider webs with jumbo creepy crawlies, witches, pumpkins and ghosts on display and I particularly loved this house where a witch had clearly lost her way and managed to navigate her vacuum cleaner into a tree!

Eventually we stopped for a lazy lunch and then it was back onto the train for the weary bikers. As we were saying our goodbyes Eri gave me a papa-bear hug and said, “I love you so very much”. For me, that took a really good day to the level of absolutely wonderful! And what’s not to love about that?