With Jean, Dean and Richard being super relaxed before the start of the wedding ceremony and after having taken some more conventional wedding photographs, it was time to step outside the box.

Three great friens with fantasic characters, a beautiful old wodden door as backdrop and voila… here is a stunning group portrait that captures their fun loving personalities perfectly.

Click wedding photographs and wedding detail phootgraphs to see more images of Melodi & Jean’s wedding day.

Arriving early at the church with his best men in tow, Jean was really relaxed while waiting to get hitched. I took the opportunity to take some pre wedding portraits of him. This being one of my favourits.

Not leaving anything to chance, Melodi, the bride arrived shortly after, making sure her soon to be husband couldn’t see her before her brother walked her down the aisle. The Lady in Red, waited outside, excited and full of the anticipation of saying “Yes I Do”.

With the wedding ceremony just finished it was time for the guests to celebrate with Melodi & Jean, starting with a flowery welcome when they left the church as husband and wife.

One of the first kisses as husband and wife, with many more to come ; )

And as so often happens, the wedding ceremony and reception went by t0o quickly… Melodi waving goodbye as they drove away with their “Just Married” styled Mini.

Watching the little rhino calf was especially entertaing. Instead of letting her aunt have a rest, the little rhino calf climbed up on top of her until aunty got up to the little ones amusement.

On each of our visits we spent quite some time with the heard and on one occasion when we started to leave, the youngster felt rather inquisitive, running at our game vehicle. She came quite close but when we drove away in a loop, she lost her cool and quickly looked for protection behind her mum.

Having spent two days around the herd and appreciating the animals, it is painful to know, that so many rhinos out there get slaughtered for their horns. Sadly there is also a heartbreaking story behind this small herd of rhinos. Just a few months before my visit to the private game reserve, two male resident rhinos died in the aftermath of brutal poacher attacks.

Nowadays only a family of four female rhinos including the calf, call the private game reserve in the Western Cape their home. Security has been tightened since, with rangers following the rhinos 24/7 which hopefully will keep them safe, but it is worrying that so many rhinos die at the hand of poachers.

South African National Parks (SANParks) published a shocking report at the end of February, announcing that in the first six weeks of 2012, 52 rhinos have already been poached throughout South Africa. The Kruger National Park being the hardest hit with a appalling 26 rhino deaths.

Now, only two weeks later apparently 118 rhinos have been poached in South Africa alone.

With rising wealth in places like Vietnam and Thailand the demand for rhino horns, which is used in traditional medicine throughout Asia, increased dramatically since 2007 with the street value of rhinoceros horn soaring to about US$ 65,000 a kilogram, making it more expensive than gold and platinum.

This has to stop!

Please help the rhinos in whatever way you can, every bit counts.

Two active ostriches at the private game reserve in South Africa.

Fun facts: The ostrich is a flightless swift-running African bird with a long neck, long legs, and two toes on each foot. They are the largest living bird, with males reaching an average height of 2.5 m (8 feet).

Stay tuned for more ostrich photographs.

I hope you enjoy it.

Late afternoon, these two young male elephants were on a stroll through the private game reserve in South Africa, passing closely by our game drive vehicle, not phased by the many cameras pointed at them.