Top Billing celebrates the wedding of Lions lock Franco Mostert
Lions lock and Springbok rugby player, Franco Mostert marries his high school princess, Juan-Ri Grobler.
If you can use the words rugby and fairy-tale together, that’s exactly what the Lions have been achieving in this year’s Super 18. Central to the story is their hero lock Franco Mostert who recently married his princess Juan-Ri Grobler.
Since they began dating in grade 8, circumstance has challenged their bond but never broken it. They were made for each other! All the girls loved Franco at school. Juan-Ri played hard to get until her friend told him she was interested. While they attended their matric dance together, Franco’s rugby bursaries and Juan-Ri’s own plans saw them go separate ways. Until she enrolled at Tuks and he simultaneously signed a contract there.
When they kept bumping into each other it just seemed destined to be. One night, he bought her coffee, they braai’d marshmallows over a candle, he told her he loved her - and they’ve been inseparable ever since.
This wedding reflects a wider story of the accomplishment of these friends. Franco is part of a team of unknowns who came together over the last few years under a new head coach and who’ve now set the bar for how the nation wants to play rugby.
Wedding professionals Louis Nel and Ines Veronica Camara were delighted to contribute to the romantic part of this fairytale. Juan-Ri asked the cake-makers to add a figure of Franco scoring a try. The venue may have closed at midnight but everyone moved on to dance around a bonfire well into the early hours. After that, for their honeymoon, the couple took some highly prized time off from rugby - in Zanzibar.
All images by: 
