Ruiker

They married in the packshed because the wind took the marquee

Helena and Ruan, on her uncle's farm outside Wolseley, 11 February. Ninety people, two braais and a borrowed potjie that fed everyone twice. We drove up on the Friday and stayed until the trestles were stacked.

Read the write-up

Written up this month

11 February · Wolseley — Helena Basson and Ruan de Wet, in the packshed on her uncle's farm, because the wind came up on the Thursday and took the marquee with it. Ninety people, two braais, one potjie. Photographs by Lize Hattingh.

2 February · Kalk Bay — Sarah Adonis and Michael Kruger signed in the harbour office at nine in the morning and fed forty people breakfast at the fish market afterwards. Total spend R38 400, and Sarah has let us print the whole breakdown. Photographs by us.

21 January · Orlando East — Palesa Mokoena and Tebogo Sithole did umembeso on the Saturday and the white wedding on the Sunday, in the same yard, under the same tent. Her mother cooked for two hundred and would not let anyone help. Photographs by Sabelo Ngwenya.

9 January · Nieu-Bethesda — Annelie Steenkamp and Wilhelm Botha, eleven guests, in the churchyard at four so the light was off the koppie. The dominee finished in nine minutes and nobody complained. Photographs by us.

15 December · Umhlanga — Priya Naidoo and Deshan Pillay, four hundred people over three days. The only thing that went wrong was the generator, on the one night it mattered. Photographs by Kiara Moodley.

Who writes this

Ilse Fourie and Zandile Mbatha. We photograph weddings on Saturdays and write one of them up on the Monday, from a flat in Observatory.

Two posts a month. Nothing here is paid for and nothing is sponsored. We credit the photographer on every frame, including the ones we did not take.

Write to us at post@ruiker.co.za.

What we file things under

Four categories and there will not be a fifth. If a wedding does not fit one of these we do not run it.

Real weddings

One wedding per post, start to finish, with what it cost wherever the couple is willing to say. Two a month, never more.

The photographers

Who shot it, roughly what they charge and whether they travel. Credited on every frame, phone pictures included.

Farms and dorpies

Packsheds, church halls, koppies and back yards. Most of what we publish happens more than an hour from a city.

How they planned it

Running order, guest count, what got cut and what nobody missed. Written plainly enough to copy.

The longer version

We are Ilse Fourie and Zandile Mbatha. We met in 2017 shooting the same wedding in Greyton for two different people, spent the reception comparing frames behind the kitchen, and have booked most Saturdays together since. Ruiker started because we kept driving home from good weddings that nobody was ever going to see. The photographs went to the couple, and the internet got the same four venues over and over. So on Mondays we sit at the kitchen table in our flat in Observatory and write one of them up properly — the hall, the food, the money, the parts that went wrong. We are not a magazine and we do not sell anything. The Corolla has 312 000 kilometres on it and we still drive it to Nieu-Bethesda. If you are getting married somewhere we have never been, that is the wedding we want.

The archive

  • Greyton · September — a church hall, forty people, and the cake carried in on the back seat
  • Hogsback · July — married in mist, photographed in mist, and nobody minded
  • Ladismith · May — the whole street was invited and most of it came
  • Muizenberg · April — sixteen guests on the beach at six, coffee at Empire by eight
  • Rustenburg · February — a Wednesday, because the hall was half price on a Wednesday
  • Clanwilliam · October — the flowers came off the verge of the R364 that morning
You wrote down what it actually cost. My cousin planned her whole wedding off that one post and she has never met either of you.
Refilwe Mahlangu · Cullinan

Send us yours

We publish two a month. Tell us where it was and send the photographer's name — we always credit them.