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Once upon a honeymoon
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November 19, 2009
 By Sally Scott
Ask any prospective bride, organising a wedding and honeymoon can be akin to pulling teeth.
As a bride of my acquaintance put it: "It was a total nightmare. I almost came to blows with various friends and relations. By the time we crawled up the aisle I was surprised that my fiancé and I were still speaking!"
Thinking cannily and with all this in mind, SABC3's lifestyle show Top Billing ran a competition whereby a couple could win the lavish wedding of their dreams, to the value of R500 000.
Some prize.
Every detail, from the venue to the designer dress, the flowers - everything taken care of.
And, the prize included (the winners did not know this was part of the deal) a five-day honeymoon at the fabulous newly refurbished and re-launched Oyster Box hotel. In the Presidential Suite!
OMG, as they say.
The competition ran over five weeks on the magazine show and just less than 2 000 entries were received. It came down to five couples and the winners were voted for by Top Billing viewers.
Capetonians Janine Richards and Clifford Swarts came out on top. That was a "huge surprise", says Janine.
The honeymoon was even more of an unexpected surprise. For five days and four nights the happy couple stayed in the fabulous (and believe this cynical old hack, it is fabulous) Presidential Suite.
A mere R50 000 a day.
Janine and Clifford, who were flown Business Class and collected at the airport in a Rolls Royce, were the first guests ever to stay in that particular suite.
From the two butlers (Alastair and Donovan) to the crystal chandeliers, the massive master bedroom (two in fact, so much jumping on the beds to do), the endless orchids and lilies, the personal pool, the linen-covered walls, the huge Roman-style bath (which when it was originally put into the suite plunged through the floor, it was so heavy), to the view straight onto the sparkling Indian ocean, they were astonished.
And it did not end there, let no one say that Top Billing does not know how to do a prize properly. During the week's stay at the Oyster Box they were taken to Phinda Game Reserve, rode pillion on two Harleys and had a picnic on the beach. They did it all.
"We have been made to feel so special," said Janine. "Actually, by the time we got here, we were so exhausted by the whirlwind event we'd been living since we won, we took a tour of both floors - there were so many doors we got lost - and then fell asleep!"
"This suite is so awesome, I never believed anything like this existed, it's surreal," Cliff said .
Their plan had been a small wedding in March, which was what they could afford. Instead, they ended up with something akin to a royal wedding.
On the day, Janine arrived in a vintage Bentley looking spectacular in a R15 000 designer dress by Javaid Aslam of Jagadi.
The ceremony, took place in a beautiful Cape chapel with the reception also in this Cape winelands setting, on the Zorgvlied Wine Estate. One hundred and twenty family members and friends joined the happy couple as they celebrated in bedouin tents, where sumptuous couches, crystal, lilies and roses were the order of the evening.
The spectacular wedding took place on November 6, but it's that Oyster Box honeymoon that Top Billing features tonight on SABC3 at 7.30pm.
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