Jaimee and JK

Today’s Brisbane wedding is quirky, fun but classically beautifully as well. Jaimee and JK took on a golden storybook theme for their day and infused their day with fun, whimsical details that gave recognition to their love of life, love of family and love of surprises!

Jaimee says “My husband JK and I are high school sweethearts, but it we weren’t always so lovey dovey.  We first met when we were 12 and JK was a horrible tease. He stole my pillow and teased me incessantly. We bonded over struggles with our languages homework. I was terrible at Japanese and he was hopeless at German. We helped each other out and years later at schoolies (how romantic) JK asked me out! Almost seven years later, with all our school friends looking on, we tied the knot. Don’t ask us to say anything in German or Japanese though!”

Photographs today are by Feather + Stone Photography who are full of whimsy, elegance and everything in between when they capture a wedding!

Jaimee wore a Lisa Gowing dress and veil. She recalls “My dress was the first I tried on.  I feel in love with the veil, it was the stuff of my girliest dreams.”

The Hungry Workshop created the stationery and paper goods for the day. Jaimee explains “Every tiny detail of our invitation suite surpassed all of our expectations. Rather than tell Simon and Jenna what we wanted we met as friends over a glass of wine and told them our story.  Their idea for a storybook themed suite perfectly captured us. And even though, like most things at our wedding, the details were just for us, our guests surprised us by finding the hidden pieces of our personalities hidden throughout each piece. And there were so many to find!

From the page number at the bottom of the fake book page (278, the date of our wedding 27th August) to the artistic interpretation of a pillow in our wedding emblem inspired by a pillow my husband stole from me when we first met when we were 12.  The centre piece of the invitations were the intricate vintage drop case letters (circa 1682) that Jenna painstakingly traced from an old type specimen book as well as the super cute envelope liners hand cut from old Golden Books – a family favourite. But most importantly they helped set the tone for our day which meant all our guests turned up ready to play!  Seeing our wedding invitations for the first time is one of my favourite wedding planning memories.”

The girls had their hair styled by Fusion and makeup by Linda Jordan. Jaimee says “Maybe make-up is something that gets overlooked in the grand scheme of planning a wedding but Linda Jordan turned out to be a total lifesaver on the day. My sister hated her hair after our trip to the hairdressers and without even blinking an eye Linda had someone drive her own GHD from home to our hotel and redid her hair on the spot. She looked gorgeous and as girls would know bad hair can ruin your day – so I still maintain that Linda was an absolute lifesaver. Oh, and she did gorgeous make-up too! Perfect for photos but not over the top in person.”

 

The traditional church ceremony had some very meaningful touches Jaimee remarks. “JK’s father passed away a few years ago and we wanted to do something in the ceremony that reminded us that he’s always with us. We bought two huge, round white balloons and tied them to the back pews either side of the aisle in the church. From our position at the front of the church we could always see them and we each held one during our group photo as a special memento.  It’s difficult to know how best to remember someone special in wedding ceremony and it’s something that we thought long and hard about. We wanted something that felt celebratory and joyous but was also ever-present during the ceremony.  In the end we did what we wanted and what felt best to us. The next day at our recovery picnic we released the balloons together with friends and family.”

Jaimee and JK held their ceremony at St Mary’s Anglican Church.

 

Jaimee walked down the isle to ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ from her favourite movie the Wizard of Oz.

Jaimee remarks, “Because it was raining so heavily after our ceremony we couldn’t leave the church so we just walked down the aisle, then stopped, turned around and spent the next 20minutes hugging our way back to the top of the church. It was different, but I wouldn’t have it any other way – the atmosphere was incredible. We also had our group photo in the beautiful old church which looks amazing!”

The rain? It ended up creating a few funny stories for the couple. Jaimee explains “But not everything went to plan. It rained for 10 straight hours (at least) on our wedding day which threw us a few curve balls but we had some great advice from our photographers to ignore the weather, enjoy the day and let the vendors we’d hired take care of the details. I’ve got to say it was the one time we really gave over control to someone else (control freak anyone) and it was still the wedding we’d dreamed of – albeit a bit wetter!

After the ceremony we had organized for a vintage Mr Whippy van to serve sundaes and soft-serve to our guests but it absolutely poured down at the end of the ceremony.  Without even thinking two of the church’s staff stood outside in the rain (getting soaked!) to hold umbrellas over our guests while they order their frozen treats.  It was so funny to look around and see our friends and families sitting in church pews with strawberry sundaes! It could’ve gone so horribly but the church was so helpful. Everyone is still talking about ‘those two nice men who got saturated’.

It would have been perfect for a sunny afternoon in beautiful grounds outside church but the novelty wasn’t lost on our family and friends (as) they ate their sundaes in the pews (probably a first for the church!!)”

Jaimee’s bridesmaids wore dresses and shoes from Alannah Hill. JK and his groomsmen wore ensembles from Rhodes & Beckett.

Jaimee and JK’s wedding flowers were styled by Green & Bloom. Jaimee remarks “We had only one 1 hour meeting with Roberta from Green and Bloom but we knew immediately that she’d got ‘us’ and that the flowers she’d created would be beautiful. They were stunning and Roberta’s sweet note on the bouquet she delivered was the cutest touch. I was so sad to leave my bouquet to wilt when we went on our honeymoon that I drove it over to my sisters house so she could enjoy it! I remembered passing another bride in the lift of Emporium Hotel and thinking how gorgeous her flowers were. I later found out that they were from Green and Bloom as well! Roberta is brilliant.”

Of their photographers, Jaimee says “Almost everyone who wanted to give us advice on planning a wedding wanted to tell us how important a good photographer was. We were set to meet a whole bunch of Brisbane photographers but our first meet-and-greet drinks were with Seth and Tenielle from Feather and Stone, we felt at ease (and kind of in love with) them straightaway and decided not to meet with anyone else. Seth and Tenielle were with us all day getting everything we missed and then some on film for us to enjoy for years to come. The moments and faces they caught for us are so telling that I know we’ll never forget what we felt.

Seth and Tenielle were patient with us and worked with the weather standing in the rain to get a picture of us dry and cosy in our car and finding pathways I go could on that meant I wouldn’t get wet. They knew how to make us smile and get the most out of us. They didn’t push us into uncomfortable stiff poses and the result is hundreds of photos that look like ‘us’. Aside from my husband, parents and bridal party we spent the most time with Seth and Tenielle so it was important that we got along. Our time together taking photos between the ceremony and the reception are some of my favourite memories from the day.”

Jaimee and JK held their reception at Mirra. Jaimee says “We chose to use vintage sodas with name tags as escort cards and chose milk bottles and tea lights from different home ware stores to decorate the tables. We had colourful snap dragons on all the tables, inspired by the snap dragon garden I had has a little girl and arranged by my husband and his mother who used to be a florist.”

The day had some funny additions, one showed up at the reception! Jaimee explains “An old exchange student who’d lived with my family for a few months in 2003 sent over two life sized bride and groom balloons to be given to us at the reception. They were hilarious and made it on to the dance floor later in the night for some totally inappropriate dancing.”

There were plenty of surprises too. Jaimee recalls “As a surprise for our friends and family we organized Chinese Lion Dancers to perform at the reception. The colour and noise was the perfect interruption to our night and I loved flicking through the photos and seeing everyone’s wide eyes and faces – it was so nice to do something unexpected for all our guests, some of whom had come from overseas and interstate. My husband’s family on his mother’s side is Chinese so the symbolism was special for them.”

There were sentimental family touches, Jaimee says “I carried the necklace my grandmother was given by my grandfather on their wedding day around my bouquet.  As a surprise in the week before the wedding my mother-in-law gave us two champagne glasses that were given to her on her wedding day. We toasted with them at the reception and now they are pride of place in our home, part of a set of six which will be broken up and given as pairs to JK’s other siblings on their wedding days.”

Jaimee says “My favourite memory from the day was my husband’s speech.  Three years ago on trip to Thailand we saw dozens of honeymooners getting around in matching outfits. I begged JK to wear a matching outfit on the plane home just for fun but he teased me about being too girly and refused. As part of the speech he surprised me with matching pajamas complete with an I JK t-shirt he’d had especially screen printed. It was a hilarious surprise and had me in stitches!

For his twenty-first birthday JK got a Hermes notepad. I hadn’t seen it for years and had actually forgotten about it, but a few days before the wedding he pulled it out and told me he’d been saving it so the first thing he ever wrote in it was his wedding speech. I was touched that all those years ago he was planning our future together!!”

The day surrounded the newlyweds with love. Jaimee notes “When we started planning our wedding we were sure of only one thing – that we wanted to be surrounded by the things and people we loved. When we sat down at our reception I leant over to my new husband and gushed about all the details hand picked by us! It was a surreal moment to see months of planning right in front of your eyes.”

For the reception, Jaimee and JK came up with a fun way to get guests dancing. Jaimee explains, “We hand picked the songs for the playlist during dinner from our, and our family’s, favourite love songs and some floor fillers later in the night that were significant to us and different groups of friends and family. It was so fun to watch the group of people you had picked a certain song for RUN to the dance floor as it started! It turned out perfectly and meant the dance floor was full all night.”

Congratulations Jaimee and JK! Thank you for sharing your day with us! Thank you also to Feather + Stone Photography for sharing the photographs with us!