Laura & Justin
The Tweed Valley provides stunning backdrops for a wedding with the rolling green hills and luscious natural backdrops, but today’s wedding takes on a holiday feel with the Thailand inspired Silk Pavilions venue. Just the ticket for the blistering hot day Mother Nature turned on for the wedding celebration.
Laura tells their story “We met in the most unlikely of places to find your soul mate: an nightclub, on the Gold Coast, on a Saturday night! I was literally love at first sight for both of us and I vividly recall saying to my girlfriend at the time “I will marry that guy” and as the saying goes, the rest is history. We have been inseparable since that night 6 years ago.”
Krista Martin Photography captured the vibrancy and life of today’s wedding in such a fun, beautiful way.
Did I mention the day was a scorcher? Laura remembers, “Our wedding day happened to be a record breaker in terms of January heat!! At one stage during the course of the day the thermometer hit a very warm and breezeless 42 degrees. The room where us girls were getting ready didn’t have air-conditioning so we were all running around with the very bare-minimal amount of clothing possible and trying to retain as much make-up on our faces as possible and the only thing that was making us feel any better was the thought of the boys all getting ready into full suits and no doubt suffering a lot more than we were – little did we know that the boys had been off swimming in a natural spring, having cold beers and standing in the chillier room. The numerous New Zealand wedding guests who attended have all said that they have never experienced heat like that in their lives! It was something that was completely out of our control so not even worth stressing about and a much better option than rain! It really was unforgettable.”
Laura wore a strapless gown from Pearl Bridal.
Laura and Justin chose Silk Pavilions in Mount Burrell for their wedding venue, Laura explaining, “Silk Pavilions is a little piece of Thailand nestled amid the stunning Border Ranges National Park in the New South Wales Tweed Valley. We fell in love with everything that Silk Pavilions had to offer us from the beautiful scenery to the option of doing whatever it was that we wanted on our wedding day. As soon as we drove up the driveway on our first visit we knew that it was what we had been searching long and hard for in a venue – something different and very ‘us’.”
For the processional, Laura recalls, “I walked down the aisle to ‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. I knew long before getting married that one day I wanted to walk down the aisle to this song, not only because the song holds special memories of my wonderful childhood but Israel’s version was stirring and really suited the outdoor style of wedding that we dreamed of.”
Of their photographer, Laura says, “Justin knows Krista from CrossFit here in Brisbane and had often spoken about her amazing photography skills – even prior to us getting engaged. While standing on the balcony of Silk Pavilions the very first time that we visited the property, Justin was on his phone emailing Krista within minutes of arriving to make sure she was available for the date that we wanted to lock in! I totally and utterly trusted Justin’s decision from the very beginning about asking Krista to be our photographer and it is the best decision (apart from marrying me) that he has ever made. From the first time that we sat down with Krista to discuss what thoughts we had for our big day right up to receiving all of the photos from her the whole experience has been nothing short of a pleasure and we could not recommend Krista Martin Photography highly enough.”
“One of the many reasons why we choose our venue was because we had the option to ‘do it our way’ which is exactly what we did. A lot of small things were either made by myself and my bridesmaids or brought by me online to add a special personal touch. This included the handmade name place tags, seating chart, personalised single bubbles for each guest, chair sashes with hand threaded crystals, lanterns and many more details. We have received a lot of feedback from our guests about the little touches and special items noticed throughout the day.”
For their first dance, Laura remembers, “On more occasions than I wish to disclose prior to our wedding, we would be at home (or on a couple of occasions at friends’ houses) and we would start talking about us needing to practice how we were going to dance at the wedding so that we didn’t look silly – 10 times out of 10 this ended with us (and others who witnessed it countlessly) laughing hysterically and dancing in very non-traditional ways and most often than not it would end in us doing the Dirty Dancing ‘lift’. Needless to say that on the night of the wedding we just winged it and laughed our way through our first song perfectly, which was Christina Perri – ‘A Thousand Years’. Later in the night when the Dirty Dancing song came on most of the guests were either dancing with us or watching from up on the hill and I quietly whispered into Justin’s ear “let’s do the lift” as this has been a long standing gig of ours he knew exactly what I meant. As the “lift” moment at the end of the song approached we separated and a couple of people clicked onto what we were doing – unbeknown to me my father (who only days earlier had witnessed our silly ‘lift’ gig for the first time) and one of my bridesmaids positioned themselves just behind Justin as a backup in case it didn’t go to plan as it had been a very long day and night by this stage! We executed it perfectly to a roaring applause from all of our guests and bridal party. Thankfully quite a few people caught it on video so we can look back on it for years to come and have a giggle.”
Congratulations on your marriage Laura and Justin! Thank you for sharing your stories with us! Thank you also to Krista Martin Photography for sharing today’s wedding with us!
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