Honestly, my heart leaps with joy each time I look through these images. I think they’re all the more special because I know the Bride and Groom as friends.

Through the camera I saw so much happiness, laughter, and fleeting glances of pure love and joy. It’s hard to find the right words to describe this perfect day, and so I hope that these images will do the talking for me.

And since the Bride and Groom have already seen their gallery of images, this sneak peek is an extra long one ;-)

The wedding ceremony took place at the fabulous Castle Duivenvoorde, a beautiful venue.

All the wedding guests gathered on the bridge, awaiting the Bride’s arrival.

Arriving on a beautiful white horse-drawn carriage, and met by the Groom, the Bride stepped down from the carriage and WOW! – her dress was amazing, she looked absolutely stunning!

Whilst the guests were being seated in the wedding hall, the Bride and Groom waited in a side room. I especially loved this fleeting moment between them.

Doesn’t the Bride look stunning? :-)

I love those loving looks the Groom gave his Bride :-)

And look at those beaming smiles as they exchanged rings!!

I also love this next image of the Bride’s Mother signing as a witness. Her smile speaks volumes, look how proud she is :-)

After the ceremony we took some formal group photographs in the castle grounds.

The fabulous Bride and Groom… :-)

The Bride, with her Mum and her Sister…

And I don’t remember what was so funny now, but l loved this out-take of the Groom’s family :-)

When all the guests had left, we also had a few special moments with just the Bride and Groom…

Yes, mostly kissing moments ;-)

*so happy for them*

And then it was time to head to De Knip, to meet all the guests for the Wedding Toast, Dinner and some dancing!

Unfortunately, due to timing, I wasn’t able to photograph the Wedding Toast and the cutting of the cake… Instead I was preparing a slideshow of the ceremony for the evening party! :-)

During the evening party, Irish dance group Kyra gave a great performance! One of the dances was improvised and without music – it was quite amazing to watch (and listen – I loved the ‘tap’ sound of their shoes as they danced)!

…and the Groom joined them for a quick Irish dance of his own ;-)

Late in the evening, the Bride and Groom took to the floor for their first dance…

And then everyone else joined in… :-)

Christa, you are a beautiful Bride, and Pete, a dashing Groom – or should I call you Mr Darcy ;) *a little inside joke for the wedding guests*.

It was truly an honour to photograph all of these very special moments. Thank you so much for allowing me to share your special day.

Wishing you both much love and happiness, always.

To Mr and Mrs. :-)

Proost! (Cheers!)

Best wishes,
~Natalie

It was raining in The Hague and as I packed my camera gear into the car I quietly whispered “please, please, stop raining, pleeeeeeeease!” – after days of blue skies and sunshine, I couldn’t believe it was raining! But, it seemed the weather gods were listening.. by the time I arrived in Leidschendam the rain had all but stopped.

It was a beautiful love story, one that travelled the Atlantic ocean; Charlotte and Remco first met 11 years ago, and in 2006 Charlotte moved to the Netherlands, for love. :-)

Unbeknown to Charlotte, I was in on a secret! Remco’s parents were surprising her with a special bridal car, a classic American car! It was a fabulous surprise, here’s a teaser – can you guess the car?

Before the ceremony we first went to visit Remco’s Oma at her care home, her face absolutely lit up when she saw Remco and Charlotte step out of the car. Her smile made my heart skip a beat, she was bursting with pride and happiness!

After a short while we travelled on to the Oude Gemeentehuis Leidschendam-Voorburg for the wedding ceremony. It was a beautiful and touching service.

Just a few moments before the guests came over to congratulate Charlotte and Remco on their marriage, I witnessed this beautiful moment… checking out the rings ;-)

With the guests waiting below, Charlotte and Remco stepped out onto the balcony..

I’m so happy for them both – Congratulations Charlotte and Remco!! :-)

The next stop was Kasteel Duivenvoorde for a creative bridal session. And now you see the car..! ;-)

It was a lot of fun to walk around the castle grounds and spend some time for some beautiful bridal portraits.

Kasteel Duivenvoorde is a stunning location!

We went inside too..

Absolutely LOVE the silhouette!

Before we knew it, the creative session came to an end and we drove the short distance to Eiland van Ome Nick where the guests were gathered for the wedding toast and the cutting of the cake.

..and the beautiful bridal cake tasted just as good as it looked! yum!

Many congratulations to Charlotte and Remco!! It was a perfect day, thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of it. I absolutely loved working with you both and can’t wait to share all your images with you! Wishing you both much happiness! :-)

I intended to just do a small sneak peek.. but making a small selection was incredibly difficult and I got a little carried away! So this sneak peek is going to be an extended one! ;)

Here’s some of the highlights of a beautiful summer’s day in The Hague; the Bride and Groom – Laila and Markus, had travelled from Dubai to marry here, and their friends and family joined them from all over the world. I hope you enjoy their sneak peek!

With the Groom and all the guests seated in the Wedding Hall of the Old City Hall, the Bride arrived with her father.

It was a beautiful ceremony; love and happiness filled the room.

Officially Mr and Mrs! :-)

After the ceremony and a short time in the ‘Congratulations Room’, the Bride and Groom departed on a horsedrawn carriage to their Reception venue.

The reception took place at the Pulchri Studio which was beautifully decorated. Delicious snacks and drinks were served by the very attentive staff. Love and laughter filled the room.

And then the party was gatecrashed in a spectacular style. Here come the students from Delft University…

This was just hilarious to watch! And after all the singing and the shouting there was the ceremonial cutting of the Groom’s tie to replace it with the University version…

The children had fun too – with a game of tug of war!

It was a lot of fun, this was taken just before the students left…

It wasn’t too long before the Bride and Groom’s son was spotted with what looked like a glass of wine………….. only it was cola, but like a true wine connoisseur, he swirled his drink around the glass before taking a sip, to the amusement of many!

After the Reception we walked along the Lange Voorhout for some portraits of the Bride and Groom.

A gorgeous couple, so very much in love. Beautiful.

After a short break, dinner was served at the Carlton Ambassador Hotel with some very entertaining speeches woven inbetween the courses!

Cutting the cake – which had two camels for the decoration!

Then the stunning couple hit the dancefloor together, met with a cloud of bubbles.

And here ends the sneak peek, I hope you enjoyed them!

To Laila and Markus, it was really an honour to be a part of your special day. I wish you a lifetime of happiness together. Best wishes to you both!

I received a lovely surprise email today which really made me smile a big happy smile! So… as a follow up to my wedding blog post please indulge me while I share some very special photographs that were taken by another couple that were staying at Olduvai Camp the same time as us. We met Doug and Jude over dinner on our first night at Olduvai but we didn’t mention a thing about our wedding plans. Imagine their surprise when, a couple of days later, they took “the sunset walk” to the top of some nearby kopjes to find Heiko and I celebrating our wedding! We waved across to each other and then Jude was quick to take some photos. It was really lovely to receive an email from her today with copies of the photos, and I LOVE them so much that I just had to share a few… :-)

*giggles* at the last one! I love them all but these three were my absolute faves! Thank you so much Doug and Jude, they were the best surprise!!

Wow! Do I have some news for you!! Remember this blog post? I know so many of you have been waiting to hear news of our wedding and to see photos… well, Mr and Mrs Carstens have returned home, and there is plenty to share with you all!

What an incredibly, amazing trip we had! We were so lucky with our sightings, the highlights being a large pack of wild dogs basking in the late afternoon light, tracking a big male leopard and having him charge our vehicle, eating our lunch right next to a cheetah family snacking on theirs, listening in the darkness to a huge heard of buffalo pass through camp followed by a pride of very hungry lions, spending the whole day with a family of lions with young cubs and watching seven of them (adults and cubs!) jump up into a small fig tree for an afternoon snooze! There is more, much more… and I promise you another must-read travel journal! But first, so many of you are wanting to hear of our wedding day in the African wilderness…

Our morning started very early with a game drive in the surrounding Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Because of the rainy season we were able to drive off road in this area and go wherever the wildlife was, since if it rained, our tracks would disappear. We didn’t see any of the cats on this particular morning, but we certainly found the wildebeest migration, a couple of leopard tortoise and we laughed at the dung beetles we saw, quickly rolling their dung in an area sparse of grass! We ate our picnic lunch under the shade of a large acacia tree and headed back to camp mid-afternoon to relax and get ready for our wedding ceremony later that afternoon.

Heiko was wearing a cream linen suit with an open-neck ivory shirt; he stepped outside our tent to wait for me whilst I got ready. My dress was a beautiful full length halter-neck with a fitted embroidered bodice, made from pure ivory textured silk. Fabric gathered in the front and tapered in at my feet with a ‘cloud of silk’ flowing behind me. I stepped out of the tent to hear Heiko say “wow” :-)

Chris, our driver/guide who was with us for the whole trip, took us to some nearby kopjes (rocky outcrop) where we met our registrar, photographer, the camp staff, as well as a group of local maasai, two of whom were our witnesses, Francis and Kadogo. At the foot of the kopjes cream fabric had been tied around some trees and there was a large table with an arrangement of cream roses as the centre piece. It was here that we had our ceremony, not far from Olduvai Camp where we were staying, with breath-taking views over the Ngorongoro Conservation Area; we could see for miles and miles over the open plains.

After we said our vows the maasai cheered and sang to us and we exchanged our rings and signed our marriage certificate. Every one of us there smiling huge grins! Our registrar congratulated us on our marriage and rose petals were thrown over us. The chef brought out our wedding cake for us to cut the first piece together and we had fun feeding each other and our maasai witnesses too. It was a delicious tiered chocolate cake with cream icing, with the top tier in the shape of a heart.

After our ceremony, and wedding cake, we all went to the highest point on the kopjes for sundowners (champagne!) but the setting sun was hidden by a thunderstorm on the horizon – which was the reason it was so windy that afternoon! The views around us were just amazing, in all directions you could see for miles and miles, we saw the dust trails of migrating wildebeest and zebra, and we spotted groups of Thomson gazelle too. Heiko and I stayed at the top of the kopjes a little longer, chatting with our maasai witnesses and looking out over the plains.

When we returned to the camp, lanterns were brought to the entrance of our tent and we shared a delicious candle lit dinner-for-two.

Our wedding day was perfect! :-)

I know many of you want to see more photos than just the two I include here, and you can! You can visit our wedding gallery. Log in with the username “guest” and password “wedding”. Enjoy!

Interesting fact for you: Olduvai was the place where fossils of the very first human footprints were discovered, made more than three million years ago by three of our human ancestors walking along a riverbank: the Leotoli Footprints. Not all that far from where we were married!

Yes, ours! Heiko and Me! We’re getting married on 5th February 2009… in Africa! :)

Rewind just a couple of months and I would never have imagined it! And when Heiko asked me on 5th September I didn’t believe him at first and asked him if he was being serious (several times apparently!) and then tears came, and he still didn’t know what my answer was, I was in complete shock! That whole weekend I had to keep telling myself this was real. We’d had a drink to celebrate – so it must be real ..right?! I didn’t imagine it.. ;)

We liked the idea of a destination wedding, only we couldn’t decide where to go… the sandy beach weddings on beautiful islands just didn’t appeal to us at all. Then… what about Africa? Well, once we had Africa in our heads we couldn’t shake the thought away. It was so very ‘Us’. A wedding in the wilderness, with all of Africa’s beauty and wildlife surrounding us. It just sounded magic. And we were both so giddy as we searched the internet for ideas.

So, let me quickly update you all on our plans!! Our trip is booked already, we’re going back to Tanzania!! We discovered a travel company specialising in wedding safaris and they’ve put together an amazing itinerary for us! All our legal paperwork is now (thankfully!) completed and sent to them to finalise with the authorities in Tanzania. We bought my engagement ring and our wedding rings in a quaint little town called Schoonhoven where they still make jewellry in the old traditional way, and we had our wedding rings engraved with our names and wedding date by hand. I bought my wedding dress just a few weeks ago during a trip to the UK! Now i’m looking for some shoes.. and that’s not an easy task! Heiko’s looking for a linen suit.. and then we have to think about the flowers, the cake… and we still need to find a photographer! I can’t photograph my own wedding! ;)

We’re so excited to be going back to Tanzania! February just so happens to be when the Great Migration is in the Southern Serengeti; so we’re expecting to see hundreds of thousands of wildebeest and zebra! I’m jumping up and down in my seat just thinking about it!!

We’ll first go to Arusha to finalise all our wedding paperwork and then we’ll visit the Ngorongoro Crater on our way to Olduvai. Our wedding will take place during our stay in Olduvai, where we’ll stay in a tented camp in the heart of the migration. Our wedding ceremony will be in the bush, in a place with a view overlooking the Serengeti. And apparently, the local Maasai people from the village love weddings and will be there to bless our wedding and sing to us too! Afterwards, we’ll have sundowners (drinks at sunset) followed by a candle-lit bush dinner. It sounds perfect! The following morning we’ll head to another camp in the Serengeti where we’ll stay at a remote private camping spot within the wildlife area, a perfect location to watch the Great Migration. After a few days there, we go to Lake Manyara and we’ll be staying in the only lodge inside the park boundary. Our final stop will be at Arusha National Park with views of Mount Meru and Kilimanjaro, and then we head back home …Mr and Mrs! :)

I love you Heiko xx