A baobab on Primrose Hill: The 'African' Engagement

I may not have day dreamed about my engagement ring but I did day dream about how my future lover would pop the question. Luckily for me the reality was better than the day dream. Future fiancés take note.

I am an avid African bush lover and I’m fairly confident I inherited this love from my father who has had shares in a few small private lodges over the years. It has been one of my biggest challenges about living in the UK. Every time I return home I make sure to plan a trip to the bush to satisfy my addiction to the smells, peacefulness and beauty of Africa’s greatest asset.

We planned a trip to South Africa for a friends wedding in December 2012 and we combined this with Christmas and family time. Normally I am quite happy to stay in more rustic places however, it had been a busy and tiresome year so I decided to splash out a bit and we booked at the 5 star Thanda Game Reserve in the luxury tented camp for 3 nights.

Our home for 3 nights

As cliché as it may seem to you all it was the most romantic and perfect setting for what was to come. Besides the game viewing being awesome and the food to die the staff went over and above for us. They snuck into our tent, scattered rose petals and candles everywhere, ran a bubble bath and left a bottle of bubbly for us. When we returned from dinner and I came back to this, Mr P insisted that this was standard as part of their ‘romance package’ which we had booked. I am very gullible so naturally I believed him and didn’t quite ‘get it’ when I turned around to a dashing young lad down on one knee, lit up by flickering candles…. as you can gather I put two and two together and said ‘yes’.

We still had a night left in the bush after this so it gave us time to be alone, let it all sink in and have a relaxing spa day before heading back to a gang of over excited family and friends. The great thing was, as it was Christmas and the wedding was a few days later, most of our family and friends were all in Durban to celebrate with us.

View from our tent

Turns out he had already decided I was going to accept and went ahead and organised an engagement party so we would be able to have it at home. One of my girlfriends booked out an area at a restaurant called Remo's by Mount Edgecombe for a few hours on Boxing Day and a few friends chipped in to pay for a photographer, Kate Van Onselen. What a lovely day! We had pizza and focaccia snacks as well as a bar tab, which both sets of parents very generously picked up.