My sister (half-sister for my confused friends) got married this past weekend and her dress was stunning. The best thing about her wedding was having our whole family in one room, we had so much fun!
Category Archives: Wedding
before getting hitched..
Getting engaged is such a wonderful and happy experience and sometimes during that phase we forget to ask the important questions which is why some people choose to go for pre-marital counselling either in their church or with a professional. It gives you the opportunity to discuss the really tough questions that you probably had not thought about. I just wanted to share my top five discussions that you need to have before getting married.
1. Residence
Where are we going to live? You and your partner may meet in Johannesburg or Cape Town but because he’s from Durban, he may want to settle down in Durban once he’s married and this is why this question is so crucial because you may not want to move from where you currently live to his home town. You also need to discuss relocation because of job offers because you do not want to be the one thing standing between his or her career progression because you don’t want to move to another city. would you be willing to have a long-distance marriage and to commute every week or month to see each other if you cannot move together?
2. Children
The first mistake most people make is that they assume that everyone wants to have children, you need to ask your partner if they want to have children before even discussing how many and when. If they don’t want children and you do then you have to make the decision of whether you still want to marry them or not and please do not delude yourself into thinking that you can change their mind two years down the line, save yourself the pain and walk away early. If you both want kids then you need to discuss how many you would like to have and agree or compromise and also when would you like to have them, accidents happen with the when part but at least you’ll know your partner wants kids so you’ll both be willing to make it work.
3. Finances
The toughest one!!! Some women have no idea how much their husbands earn or what they do with their money, if he’s not telling you before you get married, he definitely will not tell you after so you need to discuss this before you get married, like whilst you’re planning your wedding. You need to know how much your partner takes home, the breakdown of his expenses before you move in together and how much debt he has. From there you can decide who will take care of which expenses and how you can help each other eliminate as much debt as possible. Most of the married ladies I know follow the concept of my money is mine and your money is ours, personally I love this one 
The importance of being knowledgeable about your partners finances is even more crucial if you are married in community of property, turning a blind eye will not help you in the long run should your partner die before you. I have close family relative who was left with a mountain of debt after her husband died, she lost everything they had worked so hard for. Getting married out of community of property or ANC also doesn’t mean that you do not love each other or you don’t think your relationship will last, it’s a means to protect your assets for example should your partner start a business and it fails, you would not lose everything because you would not be tied to his business.
4. Career
How far do you want to go in your chosen career and what will it take to get there. Your partner may need to travel extensively or work late nights in order to progress in their career and you need to understand the sacrifices that come with it so that you don’t hold them back, you also need to agree on the boundaries in terms of spending time with you and your family. Your partner might also have to relocate abroad for a few years for career progression, would you be willing to?
5. Religion
Another tough one! Usually the woman takes on the man’s religion but there a few cases where the man will take on the woman’s religion. The bottom line is if one of the religions requires for the partner to convert, then this discussion needs to be happened so that you are both on the same page. You also need to agree which religion you would like the kids to follow if you are both going to stick with your different religions.
new surname woes
On the 1st of March I went to home affairs in Randburg to apply for my new ID and get a printed copy of our marriage certificate and it all took me 30 minutes to do and I was so impressed by their efficiency. Last week Tuesday I received a sms that my new ID was ready for collection and I picked it up on Thursday. Now that I had my new ID with my surname and our marriage certificate I could start changing my surname for all my service providers. My expectations were that I would be able to do most of them online on their websites and then scan my documents to them, this was not the case. My medical aid, policies and insurance companies all requested a scan of the documents and we completed everything over the phone. The bank, cellphone networks and clothing accounts all required for me to go to their stores or branches with my documents, fill out forms, they make copies ugh what a mission! So in the past two days I have traipsed around to all these places with documents in hand, stood in queues, waited for copies to be made, filled out forms, basically all the things that make me wonder why we have technology if we’re not going to use it :(
I cannot believe that every woman has to go through this when they get married, all the single and engaged ladies you have been warned. The ideal process would everything to change as soon as the change is made at home affairs but alas this is Africa after all..
msomi wedding
I got my wedding pictures today and I wanted to share a few with you guys! I love Carol, our photographer, she made us feel so comfortable and we had such fun 
inspired!
There have been some pictures of Felicia Mabuza-Suttle’s daughters wedding that have been doing the rounds on email and they are just beautiful. My white wedding is looming in the near future so I was inspired by these wedding pictures, Chris Munton is a genius! The daughter looks gorgeous, I love her head-piece.
newlywed woes
Abantu ave bethanda ukukhuluma (people just love to talk) and they will never stop this I know. Since we have let people know that we had a private wedding, the reactions we have received have been interesting. Some people were genuinely happy for us, others felt left out, others like we owe them a wedding day (we are still having one), others send lovely messages of marriage being a gift and others started dishing out the marriage advice. I love the fact that my husband and I are doing this our way and at our pace. We decided to get married a year before lobola negotiations took place, spoke to parents about moving in together just after lobola 10 months before we did, had pre-marital counselling just after lobola, had two traditional events as required and then the private wedding. We havent done anything without discussing and thinking it through. We both come from homes with both parents still married and fully present in our lives so we both have a good understanding of what a blessing and how tough a marriage can be firsthand and based on our discussions, both our parents marriages were very different.
Now back to the advice givers, I don’t mind the normal, mainstream advice on how to handle mother-in-law, how the wife is always right and handling the pressure to have children (eg. A friends of ours swears that dishwashers are the key to a happy marriage, it’s so funny!). I also welcome aha moments discovered in marriage and positive experiences that could help me see things from a different perspective. What I don’t like is being dictated to about what kind of wife I should be, how to run my home, how to talk to my husband, who pays for what, petty nuances by people who have been married for all of less than five years, girl please! Every marriage is different because people are different and we come from different backgrounds, what you may think is the gospel won’t necessarily work for someone else. In some cases this advice does more harm than good when people try to be something they’re not. Please can we just focus on our own marriages and relationships before we go preaching to the world on what we think is right yet back home you and your significant other barely speak or look at each other!
getting ready to be mrs msomi
My husband and I had bought the dress for our ceremony the weekend of the 17th of December, I got home and showed my parents the dress and they immediately disapproved, so on the 27th of december, my mom and I went shopping for my dress. It was an exhausting and frustrating process but I found the dress I wanted and below is the dress, I even considered the black version of the same dress because I couldn’t find a size but I ended up taking the smaller size in the white version ( I have to lose weight for it) and my boobs were literally squashed into an unplanned cleavage. I just added the below pictures to give you a better view of my dress because you can’t see it properly in the mrs msomi post. I have also added the pictures of me getting ready at home in my room.
