A vocation, continued

Weddings have been part of my family’s story for as long as I can remember — closer to an inheritance than a career choice. My mother was a florist of some renown, sought out by name rather than by chance. My sister, just a year older than I am, has led her own floristry house in Johannesburg for more than thirty years. Long before I planned a wedding of my own, I had learnt simply by watching them work to recognise what a day needed, often before anyone thought to ask.

Flowers and décor are entrusted to my own hands, whether the occasion calls for a handful of chairs on a lawn or a full reception beneath a marquee. The flowers draw on an instinct that has always run through the family; the décor reflects my own particular attention to detail. Nothing is too small to merit consideration, and nothing is left to chance.

My own journey into the industry began in Somerset West in the early 2000s, when I exchanged ideas with the late Aleit Swanepoel and began planning weddings of my own. There were celebrations at Arabella, Waterford, Erinvale and Zorgvliet; at Haute Cabrière on the Franschhoek Pass; and an open-air ceremony on the Atlantic seaboard. The standard I set for myself then has remained with me ever since. It has little to do with showmanship and everything to do with a discerning eye for the details others might overlook: the true colour of a flower in the last hour of light, for instance, when the shadows lengthen and nothing looks quite as it did at midday.

Some years abroad followed, spent teaching rather than planning weddings, before I eventually returned to South Africa and made my home in Knysna. Carón Drake Weddings & Events is a continuation of that original vocation.

Today, I plan and coordinate weddings and private events along this coastline, for couples marrying here from South Africa and from considerably further afield. The attention remains as it always has: an instinct for recognising what a day requires, often before I am asked.