Shari and Brendan

There wasn’t much about Shari and Brendan’s vineyard wedding that wasn’t handmade!

Shari tells he story of how they came to be. “I first met Brendan when I was 16 and he was 18. We met through our mutual close friend Brett (Warbo). I was at school with Warbo and Brendan played footy with him. I worked as a “boostie” at our local Boost Juice store and was rostered to work each Friday night and weekend. Every Friday night, Warbo and his mates would come down to the shopping centre grab a Boost and roam around before settling for take out dinner.

Each week Brendan would order a tropical crush with extra ice and what turned out to be mutual chit chat soon turned into long nightly phone calls. Warbo would encourage us to double date and really tried to play cupid with our blossoming high school romance. After a couple of months dating, Brendan and I decided to make it official. Two weeks later our good friend Warbo was tragically taken away from us. This sad experience made us stronger and closer together as best friends. That was coming up 8 years this year, Brendan and I now have a son and wonderful life together. We wish our good friend was here to share it with us, however the loss that we encountered made us really appreciate every step of our lives.”

Beautiful photography today comes from Chrisp Pictures .

“The day was wonderfully amazing in every single way, however one story will haunt me for ever. Brendan’s groomsman Julian collected the boys’ suits for us two days before the wedding. With forty minutes to go until we left for the chapel we all started getting dressed. My Brother walked into the kitchen where my hair was getting touched up (Lani my maid of Honor is a hair dresser) and states his pants to his suit are not in the suit bag.

Jason is 13, so I assumed he only had a quick look, I assured him they were there and to open the suit jacket and they would be hanging over the hook. Well, Jason walked back out and said “No Shari, they are not in there.” So… it was 2:35pm our wedding started at 3:30pm and it was a Saturday so the suit store had closed at midday.

Fair to say my heart sank and I thought my brother would be walking me down the aisle in jeans…. Luckily Lani ( the BEST maid of honor in the world) is a hairdresser and one her clients works in our suit store. So we tracked down the number ,called the lady who then called the other lady handling our order and we got Jason’s pants at about 3:25pm. I arrived to the wedding 20 minutes late, but that’s tradition anyway! ”

Shari wore a Wendy Makin gown.

Shari and Brendan married at Traralgon Vineyard. Shari remarks, “We used the Traralgon Vineyard for both ceremony and reception. It is a simple yet elegant setting which allowed us to attach our rustic style and make our wedding “ours”. They were so great to work with and made our day so smooth and easy.”

“My younger brother Jason walked me down the aisle to ‘Mango Tree’ by Angus & Julia Stone. ”

“We loved having our son Kobey there. Kobes is 3 and just like any 3 year old he is true to himself no matter where he is. Even whilst we were saying our vows Kobes walked around chatting to us not being phased by the 110 people watching him. ”

Of their photographer Shari says, “Telling you Christina is amazing is an understatement. She allowed our day to flow naturally with out fake or cheesy poses. She captured the significant details of our day as well as the minor things that that people usually would not notice. Not only that, our photos reflect the personalities and people we are. Our wedding album brings massive bursts of warmth and love every time I look at them. Its been almost 6 months and I still get amazed every time I look at them.”

“Our theme was books, birds and berries. Our save the dates/invites were rustic with love birds. Our colours were navy, olive green and ivory. I tied the colours in by my bridesmaids wearing navy, my flower girl in ivory with olive flower sash and myself in ivory.”

” Our cake was olive and ivory ombre with two rustic wooden love birds with a twine S&B monogram. Our table settings were tacks of hard bound vintage books with a tall Fowler jar with 7 tulips. Around the books we have wooden berry boxes filled with gummy berry lollies for our guests to nibble on with bird figurines on the top of the pile of books.”

For their first dance, Shari recalls “We danced to Powder Fingers ‘Burn your name’. It is a song both Brendan and enjoy. Brendan is not much of a groover so our dance was very plain and simple. It was lovely having our bridal party dance with us. We all exchanged partners and had fun with it.”

Congratulations on your marriage Shari and Brendan! Thank you for sharing your day with us! Thank you also to Chrisp Pictures for sharing today’s wedding with us!