Our History
A venue that began in a kitchen
The founder
Cecilia Birkenstock
Cecilia Birkenstock has spent twenty nine years in hospitality. Twenty five of those in weddings, fifteen in industrial catering, and all of them watching what actually makes a day run beautifully rather than just look beautiful.
She is the founder of FunctionFoods, and for years she fed other people's celebrations in other people's venues. The north coast had couples who wanted to marry near home, and nowhere near enough places worth booking. So she built one.
Thembela means to trust, or to believe in. It is the right word for a business where a family hands you one day of their lives and expects it back whole. Every wedding here is still run by the person whose name is on the gate.
That is also why the catering is not outsourced. The kitchen is hers, the decor is hers, and the team setting your tables is the team she trained.
Twenty five years of weddings behind the kitchen door, and then one venue built by the person who already knew where every celebration goes wrong.
The venue
Ten years of quiet refinement
What began as a kitchen cooking other people's celebrations has grown, deliberately and without hurry, into a venue of its own on the north coast. Every space here was reimagined, keeping Thembela an industry leader and giving its couples an experience measured against the world's best.
2004
Cecilia buys Function Foods, cooking and hiring decor for other people's celebrations.
The years after
Catering across the north coast, with decor hired in for each celebration.
Bydzine
She starts buying her own decor and forms Bydzine Weddings. The two travel the whole of the north of KwaZulu-Natal.
2023
After twenty years on the road, the venue is built. Thembela is Zulu for to trust, or to believe in.
Today
Function Foods remains the company behind the venue. The kitchen that fed those twenty years now cooks here.
Every corner
A venue built to be walked, not just looked at
