Nine months to plan a wedding – easy we think – mainly because we knew what we wanted AND well… I am organised and super bossy! We wanted something fresh, bright, vintage, and cute, with an element of birds – a theme that would flow on from the vibe of our Engagement Party. Yellow, being our joint favourite colour, would be combined with grey and white. We had our hearts set on getting married beach side at sundown, a reminder of when we met!

Over a month we threw up ideas of getting married in Bali or the Whitsundays, but with family needing to travel from London, Spain and Adelaide and Queensland… we decided on Melbourne.  We had one venue in mind: The Harbour Room, at the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron in St Kilda (Victoria) and they’ve been fabulous to deal with. We fell in love with the plan for a rooftop ceremony and then the reception downstairs!

Harbour Room View

Image by Lauren and Olly

The Harbour Room View! It was Venue love at first sight!

Lauren Harbour Room Excitement!

Image by Lauren and Olly

Olly busting me twirling with excitement in the venue… can you see that view?!

I will not avoid mentioning straight away, the stress of the logistics of this wedding were simply overwhelming at times. I also often wondered ‘why do weddings bring out the worst in people before the good?’. The main issue we have faced was the ‘feedback’ (a word I place in inverted commas with much sarcasm) that we had on our decision to not have children under 11 years of age attend the ceremony or reception. I must stress to all Brides; everyone will have an opinion, but at the end of the day, you know you are planning rationally and not selfishly and that is all that should matter in the end.

Weddings with so many guests traveling long distances to attend,  too seem like an impossible task (we simply couldn’t afford 2 weddings!). I assume this is the same issue that organising a destination wedding would have, so I feel for the brides out there going through that process also!

We decided to email all traveling guests a ‘save the date’ and our wedding website that I created, 8 months out, to give them time to decline without pressure. Invites were sent earlier than the norm, 4 months out in fact. The plan worked and logistically things have gone very smoothly. Initially we thought 120 guests, but we now have 90. Perfect.

An example of our wedding invite suite… where the theme-ing ideas began – from Etsy store Inviting Moments!

L&O RSVP Front Cover

The bridal party was an easy choice; Olly would have Tom and Dominic his triplet brothers (standby for photos in my next post to see if YOU can tell them apart!) and I would have Jane and Sharon my two best friends. I would also have my two sisters, Eden, 15, as junior bridesmaid and Taylor, 11, as flower girl.

Now it was time to start spending! This leads me to confess… I am now addicted to “Etsy”. Etsy has provided me with the save the date, invites, menus, thumbprint guest tree, bridesmaid dresses, my hair piece, bridesmaids’ earrings (from Venice), hair clips for the girls, pom poms for above the dance floor, ‘fun’ cufflinks for the groomsmen and more! I won’t assume all Polkadot Brides know of Etsy… if you don’t, you need to – ASAP!

The girls are wearing a grey silk knee length dress, with yellow accessories. The boys are all in grey, with white shirts and tan accessories. Olly’s suit is a ‘concrete’ grey and his brother’s suits are ‘ash’ grey. I am wearing an ivory Allure Bridal gown with a simple train and beading on the  lower bust and straps. I decided against a veil (beachside & veils in my mind spell lipstick disaster) – instead I have a beaded hair piece which will adorn a soft curl bob hairstyle, a la Charlize Theron. The venue, the bridal party and I would be engulfed with beautiful vintage inspired flowers in white and yellow designed by our most talented friend and florist Kate Hill.

A snippet of our look book – without giving any bride secrets away!

L&OWedding LookBook

Grey dress from YongS, birdcage (image from Lauren), bouquet via Prima Donna Bride, Earrings from Etsy seller Betsy, Thumb print tree from Inviting Moments, dove cake topper from Magical Day, pom poms from  PartyPoms, image from Erin Hearts Court via Once Wed

Throughout the planning my mind constantly wondered and I felt slightly panicked… why?… Olly is English, his 12 month working visa expires 3 weeks after our wedding. I hoped with all my heart the government will let us live together here in our home. Our honeymoon – well sadly it can only be set and organised when we have the Visa issues behind us (for that reason we decided on a Flight Centre Gift Registry, so we’d have the ability to use it to be together no matter what the outcome).

Olly and I have loved organising the wedding, we knew what we wanted and agreed on EVERYTHING! Olly became so excited about the day, hardly believing how fast he got dressed to come with me to pick up bridesmaid shoes, or how he clapped his hands in excitement after our art and craft night making our entrance sign! The wedding planning bonded us like I hadn’t imagined ever possible (that said we haven’t done the seating arrangements or picked our music play lists yet!)

We have decided to remain positive with April the 15th fast approaching, in our minds ~everything happens for a reason~

Ms Polka Dot says: Don’t you just love this pretty colour scheme of grey and yellow? So elegant and it will pick up the colours of their wished for sunset wedding. Less than a month until the wedding now so we send our warm wishes to Lauren and Olly for a wonderful wedding day. Thank you for sharing these snippets of your wedding planning journey with us!

Lauren says: I’m a 28 year old, Melbournite. Originally from Queensland, spent 11 years in Adelaide on the way to Melbourne. Engaged to an Englishman and in the process of starting a life together and planning a wedding!