I almost didn’t make it to Charl and Ruth’s wedding. En route to the farm, just after Ronnies sex shop to be exact, a river had broken its banks and water flooded over the road. It was right then and there that I knew it was going to be an eventful wedding.

Charl and Ruth, along with friends and family, had spent a whole week prior to their wedding setting up the reception area, only to have to tear it down in a matter of hours and rebuild it under a farm shed due to the threatening rain. You would never have guessed it though, as everything came together with a perfect timing, that seemingly no man had control over.

When I arrived at Buffelsdrift, the sky was a brooding blue and purple over the karoo desert landscape and there was a kind of energy in the air, the kind you get when nature is waiting in expectation for the breaking rains, it was breathtaking to say the least. I started off with Ruth and the girls at the old farmhouse, they got ready sharing intermit moments and laughs together while the diaphanous atmosphere hung like humidity as the clouds rolled and shifted in the sky.

The Ceremony was held out in the open, guests were comfortably seated on hay bails that assembled around Charl and Ruth as they said their vows under three erected trees, Ruth’s bright bouquet of bougainvillea, a stark contrast to the surrounding landscape. As the ceremony came to an end the bursting clouds that had turned a deep azure in their patience, finally broke and the rain began to fall.

It was with the falling of night, warm fires, fairy lights and good food, that the celebration got under way. Tables and hay bails filled the farm shed, people laughed and relaxed as the food was served and speeches were said. As the night grew long Charl and Ruth opened the dance floor and the Nomadic Orchestra busted out their balcon beats. I chuckled to myself at the irony; it was under a clear, star spotted sky that the night was danced away.