Everything, really.
We love what we do for a living. We love our cars. We love our pets. We love that feeling we get when that certain someone walks into the room. And very recently, I’ve realised that you can love, love.
For the past few months I’ve been organising and strategising in an attempt to pull off the perfect proposal to my now – very recent – fiancé (or “wife-elect” if you don’t like the Frenchies).
My overall idea was to have a very chilled – albeit slightly romantic – picnic before sunset, where I’d drop the hammer and ask her to be my wife. The location had to be everything. Somewhere beautiful, but somewhere familiar. Enter Môreson Wine Estate.
On our first ever little getaway, Lauren and I visited Franschhoek and, being the grab-the-wine-by-the-cork kind of people, decided to visit as many wineries in the area to add to our list of favourites. On our last morning in Franschhoek, we left our guest house early and chose to visit one more estate before meeting mates for an early lunch. It was a toss-up between a number of quite popular estates in the general area, and we decided on Môreson because, quite frankly, we liked the little sun on the “o” in the logo.
Fast-forward through sharing tattoo stories with the wine-tasting dude, JP, a quick photo shoot in the vineyard and walking away with another 5 bottles of wine (we were at 16 for the weekend already, clinking in the boot of our Hyundai Atos rental chariot), we swore to go back when we were in Franschhoek again. It was one of those places that just made you feel happy. Could’ve been the wine, but the feeling remained.
Fast-forward again to end-2011 when Lauren, myself and our good friend Kate, decided that we were going to run Two Oceans 21km. At this point, the furthest any of us had run was a 10km, so double that (plus an extra kilo for good measure) seemed a bit daunting. Be that as it may, we entered, and planned our weekend, which ended up with Lauren and I booking the rest of the weekend in Franschhoek to recover from the race.
“Excellent…” thought I, with fingers twiddling like Mr Burns.
Franschhoek would be the perfect setting to execute my plan. Now, to find a venue. Again: Beautiful. Familiar. Hello Môreson.
I emailed Môreson with a very basic idea: I’d like to propose to my girlfriend in Franschhoek at sunset, and we loved Môreson so much that it would seem impossible for it not to be the place to do it.
From that point it seemed like my proposal plan was planning itself. Except it wasn’t. Nikki Friedman from Môreson was doing it all. Nikki had put together a plan for a picnic on the grass overlooking the vineyards with the sun setting behind the mountains beyond them. She sent photos, gave ideas, advice, and was an absolute rockstar.
Then, enter the weather. Rain was forecast for the entire weekend.
I can run 21km in the rain. Well, we did. But I couldn’t very well have a picnic on the grass in the rain! Again, Nikki to the rescue.
Nikki and her team created an indoor picnic in their wine tasting room using hay bails, pillows and blankets, and supplied us with a range of cheeses, homemade meats and preserves and general yumminess. Not forgetting the chilled bottle of Môreson pink champagne.
It was perfect.
During the back and forths of emails and phone calls, Nikki had everything under control, and every email had me thinking of creative ways of saying “thank you”, because that’s all I could do, Môreson grabbed this little project by the horns and made it phenomenal.
During the last few emails as we had finalised our arrival at Môreson and details of what would be happening, I asked Nikki why a wine estate would help little old me, just a guy who wants to propose to his future wife. Why they would work so hard and open the estate just for us.
She replied: “Because we love love.”
So on Saturday night, just before sunset, the rain stopped briefly enough for us to walk into the vineyards. Clouds broke over the mountains to let the sun shine through directly onto the only two guests on the estate, us.
I got down on one knee and asked her to be my wife. She said yes. Yay me.
I’d like to, once again, thank Môreson for their absolutely incredible work and genuine interest in making my little dream come true. More specifically, for playing such an important part in making one of the happiest days of my life a reality. Môreson will forever be one of my favourite places in the world, and if you visit them the next time you’re in Franchhoek, I’m sure it’ll be for you too.
Check out Môreson on Twitter & Facebook and give them some love.
