The planning of the graduation celebrations was a demanding, but fun process. I love seeing things come together, especially social gatherings, so the emails between venues were exciting, especially when things started to take shape. Finding a venue in Cape Town, for a December date, is like looking for a needle in haystack. For the summertime period venues get booked months in advance, for weddings, years in advance. So, before you can even get to the prices, you need to find out about availability.
After countless emailing back and forth with different venues, and stressing about not finding the perfect venue, I landed the perfect venue, the Casa Labia, in Muizenberg. The venue has an interesting history in that it was built in 1929 to reflect the spirit of 18th century Venice. The venue used to be the former Muizenberg residence of Count and Countess Natale Labia. You can read more about the history of the building and the venue on their website. The venue is very camp, it has “old world” charm, and provides both inside and outside flexibility. The actual graduation was in the morning at the university, and it was summer, so my plan was a late afternoon informal gathering that slowly moves into a more formal seat down dinner.
The plan was to enjoy the sunset with sundowners. As someone who loves the Cape Town summers, I really wanted to have a sundowners-into-dinner experience, so a sea view venue with an outside was a real winner. As the sparkling wine flowed, family from out of town, and my friends in the city would get a chance to get acquainted. I really do think that “sundowner hour” is a magical hour of the day, because people are usually still sober and enjoying the feeling of being out, and there is anticipation for the night ahead. So that hour or two of meeting people, drinking, and enjoying Cape Town summer weather is an amazing lubrication for a stellar night.
For the graduation celebrations it was important for my family from out of town to organically mix with my friends and really my life in Cape Town. Often families of origin don’t “understand” queer people’s lives in the big cities we choose to call home. So creating an environment of engagement and the sharing of the world, if for a night, was important.
As I mentioned in my previous write-up about the graduation celebrations, it was important to mark this day because like weddings, it is fleeting. And I suppose therein lies its magic.
The venue was ideal in many ways; it allowed flexibility with the menu; I could bring in my own flower arrangement person – and Lungiswa Joe did an amazing job; I could arrange my own wine selection and just pay corkage; and I had the whole venue for the night for the party.
I was very happy with how the graduation celebrations turned out. It was an amazing night of not only celebrating my academic achievements, but also honouring my family and friends who have been supportive throughout my academic journey. Now, we have great memories from the night, and lots of pictures to print and hang on home walls and office desks. Also, we have an archive of queer black life in South Africa in 2019, we have a testament that, with a little bit of imagination, and with the little bit of freedom we have in post-apartheid South Africa, we can turn stones into croissants.
Enjoy!
[…] Day celebrations were at the university, where I was crowned with my doctorate. The second Graduation Day celebrations were at he reception venue at Casa Labia. This is the final celebrations which took […]