Polka dots obviously remain a favourite of mine. From bold and bright, to subtle and sweet, they can add a special little touch to any element of your wedding day.

Polka dot wedding gowns…

1. Daryl gown by Ruffled 2. All For The Love Of dress from Modcloth 3. Sweetpea by Ivy & Aster (available at Studio White) 4.Elope Dress by Sarah Seven (also available at Studio White)  5. Zoe by Henry Roth 6. Oscar De la Renta via Brides (available from Helen Rodrigues)

Polka dot wedding invitations…

1. Cotton Candy Invitation  from  Stelloberry Designs 2. Mademoiselle Polka Dot invitation by Alannah Rose Stationery 3. Polka Dot Invitation from The Print Fairy 4. Harlow invitation from Ruby & Willow 5. Polkadottie invitation from Poppiseed Designs 6. Polkadot Chic invitation from Pretty Inviting

Polka dot wedding cakes…

1. Faye Cahill Cake Design 2. Sharon Wee Creations 3. Alison Louise Designer Cakes 4. The Cake Company

Polka dot wedding accessories…

1. The Spot Bowtie from Webster In White 2. Young Love shoulder length veil from Kristi Bonnici 3. Dotted Cinquefoil comb from BHLDN 4. Soo Ihn Kim Gaby Earrings from Shopbop 5. Ali Limb Petticoat rings from e.getal

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Corrin and Johnny

It’s hard to believe that today’s wedding was on a 40 degree day. Today’s wedding won me over when the words ‘polka dots’ entered my inbox (really, do people think I like polka dots?) and then had me at the gorgeous dress, the romantic details, the very much in love bride and groom and the sweet heartfelt moments. This, this is what it is all about and oh it is such fun to help tell the story of a couple who had as much fun planning their day as Corrin and Johnny – so I’ll let them kick off the story of their retro inspired farm wedding.

Corrin recalls the meeting story of her and Johnny. “We first met in slightly unusual circumstances. Johnny had a spinal cord injury surfing in Indonesia and needed rehab back home in New Zealand. At the same time my brother Jai had just had a spinal cord injury snowboarding in Queenstown and was flown to the same rehab unit. Jai and Johnny became really good mates and after a trip to Sydney to visit Jai, Johnny and I got chatting and realised we had a lot in common including a love of similar bands, eating good food and travel. After making a couple of mixed compilation CDs for one another getting to know each other further via emails and phone calls and several trips to NZ to visit Johnny, we decided that this was something special and needed to be with each other in the same country, so I packed up and moved to NZ.”

Photos today are by Michelle Fiona Photography who has a soft, gentle nature to her imagery- there is a sensitivity to it that is really beautiful.

Corrin loved her makeup artist. “My make up was truly amazing. Zoe Dellis was fantastic and I would highly recommend her.  She did a beautiful job of all the bridesmaids and was very experienced in knowing what would suit each individual, suiting them all in shades of grey and silver. My make up was perfect, she picked a bronze eye-liner which really made my eye colour stand out which I never would have thought. She listened to what I wanted and also made suggestions on what would work for me. It was subtle and minimal but still covered blemishes, looked great in photos, and lasted throughout the very hot day.”

Corrin wore a 1950′s style polka dot dress. “My very fun and pretty dress was a Henry Roth dress called “Zoe”. It was bought and altered to tea length at Dress Sense Bridal Miranda The polka dots made it such a fun dress to wear.”

You can’t have a great dress without great shoes! Corrin remarks “Johnny wore some amazing brown English Loakes his dad sourced from a vintage op shop, and I  brought brown peep toe wedges and had them dyed to the same colour as my dress by a little boutique shop which has been around since 1934, Pastel Shoe Dyers who’s shop was unfortunately destroyed 3 days after our wedding in the Christchurch earthquake.”

The couple were married at Belgenney Farm in Camden NSW. “At the start of our planning a priority of ours was to find a venue where we could have the ceremony and reception at the same place. We also wanted somewhere in the country and an outdoor garden ceremony, which is always a risk with weather. We fell in love with Belgenny Farm as it suited us. It had a relaxed vibe being in the country, was the birthplace of Australian agriculture which interested me (Corrin) having just finished studies in horticulture, had a garden area for ceremonies and a lovely intimate building for the reception – all in the one place and all to our selves.

Lyndal at Belgenny was great. She made planning our wedding from a different country easy and stress free with her organisation and quick responses to emails. She also let us come to the venue the day before the wedding to set up with our family and friends by putting crème Vietnamese lanterns in the tree, setting the tables etc. The reception building was a lovely relief on the day for guests to retreat to after the ceremony for a refreshing drink and to socialise under air con. The building was a barn style with brick floor, tin roof and exposed timber ceiling beams, very rustic and charming!”

Corrin recalls “I walked down the aisle to Regina Spektor’s cover of ‘Real Love’ written by John Lennon. A favourite of both of ours. Johnny loves The Beatles and I love Regina so it was the perfect song.”

A surprise was the gift of a guest’s video camera. “We are fortunate that a lot was captured on video from our friend who did a great job of recording the whole day and getting individual messages for us to watch later. Because as they say the day goes too fast and it feels like you don’t get to talk to all the people you want to. So it was wonderful to go home and see parts of our day play out at times we weren’t present.”

The bridesmaids wore ” Yellow dresses 1950’s style with a full skirt and all different style tops to suit each body type mostly hand made by my very talented mum and lovely Aunty with one made by my sister and her business partner. Each bridesmaid wearing a charcoal grey sash tied around the waist secured with a button broach I had made.”

The florist, was a family favourite. Corrin explains ” We used Francis Dunn Florist. Francis Dunn florist made the bouquets look incredible! I wanted to use Francis Dunn as she made my mum’s bouquets at her wedding and my two Aunty’s weddings 25 or so years ago and now her daughter Janelle does the flowers along with her daughters. For our wedding they arranged Yellow Calla Lillies, white freesias, Dusty Millar, roses, Singapore orchids and green berries bundled together in a messy, natural looking posy tied up with a crème satin ribbon. Just perfect! The boys wore yellow calla lilies on their chests that turned out to be rather large trumpets, but looked great!”

The boys wore New Zealand tailored outfits. “The boys all wore thin wool trousers (not ideal for super hot days), with a black belt and thin black tie all from Hallensteins, New Zealand and their own white shirt and black shoes. Johnny wore the same but with brown Loakes and a yellow paisley silk tie and grey vest, which was ditched right after the ceremony due to the heat!”

Music played a big role in the day. “We made up a couple of CDs to be played throughout the day with music that we liked on it, which was really great, to be out getting photos and hear a song we knew come on, it made us feel relaxed. For the dancing we had a lot of classic rockin’, swinging, music including The Beatles ‘Saw her standing there’ and ‘Twist and Shout’ and Chuck Berry which got everyone up dancing.”

The dessert had a special touch from Corrin’s mother and more sweet treats to share. Corrin recalls “We had a dessert as part of the package of the 3-course menu, however, my mum insisted she make a cake for us so we could keep the tradition of ‘cutting the cake’. The cake she made was beautiful. It was a double layered white chocolate mud cake with white chocolate icing and a ‘hat’ made by our florist decorating its top of Singapore orchids and freesias, and a nest of dodda vine that the cake sat on. Alongside the cake we had organised as favours a Lindt Macaroon pyramid (From Lindt Miranda – (02 9531 8180) in colours of champagne, yellows, and browns which looked incredible. And because it was really hot the macaroons just melted in you mouth – divine! “

The stationery was designed by Johnny. Corrin explains”I love making cards so I wanted to hand make the invites. We didn’t have a theme at the stage of making the invites, but I had hand sewn a button onto different textured cardboard and Johnny being the computer literate of us both designed the insides and map to the venue. We then had buttons throughout on the stationery, from the menus and boys’ boutonnieres.

We thought it was important to put out personal touch on our day so we tried to DIY where we could to make it easy and save money. It was quite fun being involved in the process of designing and making things for our wedding including all the stationary designed by Johnny on computer using the same font throughout (invite, name cards, programs and menu).”

The day was truly reflective of Corrin & Johnny and just what Corrin wanted “We wanted to keep traditional elements for our wedding but to shape it to be unique to us.  Therefore, we followed the traditional speech patterns and have my father walk me down the aisle. We put our own touch on things with details such as the lanterns in the tree and having a framed photo of Johnny’s brother, Callum on the registry and bridal table.”

Corrin remarks “The moment Johnny and I snuck outside after dinner for 5 minutes by ourselves to get fresh air was special because it was the first time we were alone as husband and wife.  It was brief but something I’ll never forget.”

The first dance, held after sunset was a special, unexpected moment for the newlyweds. Corrin explains “The wedding day came around quite quickly and with all the other planning going on around us, we had picked a song but we hadn’t really thought of any dance moves until we were heading to the dance floor. To our surprise the dancing seemed to just come to us and we just made it up as the music played along, with a couple of whispers to each other of “dip now’ or ‘twirl’. We danced along to Dean Martin’s ‘Memories are made of this’ as it’s such a great classic old song with a recipe for a wonderful marriage.”

Congratulations Corrin and Johnny! Thank you for allowing us to share your wedding day on Polka Dot Bride! Thank you also to Michelle Fiona Photography for today’s imagery!

Photos by Michelle Fiona Photography

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2. Lisa and Johnny – The Celebration
3. Jo and Hugh’s Retro Melbourne Wedding

Video by Crafthouse Productions

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Karen and Lane

Polka dots? They never get old to me, and as my wardrobe and life slowly fills to the brim with polka dots. I love to see how someone can take something that is quirky and fun and translate it to their wedding. Today’s wedding has hopped across the ocean from the USA and I’m delighted to share it with you- In N Out trucks catering the reception? Check. Sentimental moments? Check! Personal details? Check, and polka dots? Triple check!

Karen recalls how she met her husband Lance. “We met while working a summer job at a waterpark. We were both dating other people and had no interest in each other, then realized after a month or two that we had the same sense of humor and actually liked hanging out. The rest is history!”

Planning and design for today’s wedding was by Jesi Haack and her team at Jesi Haack Design (I’m so excited, I’ve been admiring Jesi’s work from afar for such a long time!) The beautiful images are captured by Aaron Shintaku Photography. I love the warmth in Arron’s captures- stylish, fun and capturing the most important parts.

Karen wore a gorgeous strapless gown from Claudine for Alyce Designs and paired it with hot pink heels from Kate Spade. Honey and Poppies styled the flowers which fit in with the theme, Karen explains, ” We used anemones throughout to continue the polka dot theme.”

Karen says “We had a first look before the ceremony. It gave us a chance to see each other and relax a little before the ceremony…it broke some of the tension and helped us both mellow out a little before the ceremony.”

Karen and Lane held their ceremony and reception at Red Horse Barn, California “We wanted somewhere that would allow us to bring in whatever vendors we wanted, mostly because we wanted In-N-Out! Letting us use In-N-Out as our caterer was pretty much a deal breaker, so the fact that they would let us sold me on it. Aside from that, it is a gorgeous venue, with so much natural beauty from the tress and flowers that it didn’t need a lot of extras to make it look amazing, and it was unusual – I don’t think anyone we told about it had heard of it. Plus, hello, the horses. Amazing.”

The polka dot theme was one of Karen’s favourite parts of the day. “I loved the polka dots! We loved the clean look and feel of a black and white color scheme, but wanted it to be fun and a little quirky rather than formal. I was beyond excited at all the ways the polka dots were tied in (the backdrop, along the aisle, place cards, the dots thrown in the air after the kiss) without being over the top or cheesy.”

Karen made sure to put her own touch on the day. “I wanted to do as much DIY as possible. I made the invitations, programs, favors, “here comes the bride” signs, and the Mr/Mrs signs. Lane’s mom made the pocket squares, shoe clips, and the flower girl dress and purse. Jesi took care of the rest, but made sure to give it that DIY feel that I really wanted.”

The music was personal with the bridal party walking to ‘Canon In D’. Karen explains “I walked to the traditional here comes the bride/wedding march.  We had Lane’s sister’s boyfriend play for us on the keyboard to make it special and more personal.”

Karen says “I looooooved our bouquets, anemones with polka dot ribbons for the girls and black lace for mine. Perfection. And the shoes. They’re the loves of my life.”

Special details were added to the reception to keep the sense of fun, polka dot escort cards, tables named after parts of burgers, paper pom poms hung from the roof,  and black boxes filled with blooms decorated the area.

The guest book was a special nod to Lane’s passion. Karen explains, “The bike tires used for the guest book were a special nod to Lane and his love of mountain biking.” Guests wrote on pre printed mad libs cards and stuck them into the wheel spokes.

The couple arranged for an In N Out truck to arrive at the venue and cater the reception. Karen says “This was Lane’s one must-have for the wedding, something we had decided we wanted long before we were even engaged. We even switched the time of the wedding to make sure we could get the truck! The french fries and fast food treats were delicious and having In-N-Out was huge because it was so quintessentially Lane and I, and everyone loved it, along with the ice cream sandwiches from Coolhaus.”

The day was filled with special moments for the newlyweds. “There are seriously so many stories I loved from that day.  One of my favorites is my 9 year old nephew unexpectedly  asking to make a toast, directed at Lane and giving him the important wisdom he’d gained over his 9 years of life: ‘If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy’. Another sweet one is my dad performing a magic trick during his speech, because anyone that knows him would expect no less.”

Sweet and Saucy Shop created the three tier wedding cake topped with a personalised cake topper with a little Karen and Lane and Lane’s mountain bike.

The dances of the night, my favourite part were filled with sentimental moments. Karen recalls “We danced to “Smother Me” by The Used.  We wanted something that held some kind of meaning to us, but that wasn’t overly sappy.  The Used has always been one of Lane’s favorite bands, so it was a good fit, although Lane wasn’t really a fan of dancing at all! I also surprised my dad by bringing our “indian princess” vests (a father-daughter YMCA program we were in when I was little, and which he is still hugely involved in) for our first dance.”

Congratulations Karen and Lane on your wedding day! Thank you for sharing it with us today! A big thank you also to Jesi of Jesi Haack Design and Aaron of by Aaron Shintaku Photography. for sharing today’s wedding with us!

Photos by Aaron Shintaku Photography.

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Lindsay and Tim

Today’s wedding will have you wanting to celebrate – a sunshine filled celebration at a zoo! There’s pretty spring blooms, a gorgeous dress, a carousel and oh, there is love – that I made sure of! Lindsay and Tim’s Perth wedding is filled with love.

Our bride today, Lindsay, explains how she met Tim. “Tim and I met properly on Christmas Day 2008. He is the older brother of one of my good friends Megan. Megs had organised a Christmas Day party at her house, so of course Tim, who was over from Brisbane where he was living at the time, was invited. I remember thinking he was quite handsome, but that he had a terrible fashion sense. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt at the time. Obviously I managed to get past that, as we started seeing each other in February the following year – but it was a long distance romance with me having recently relocated to  Melbourne and Tim in Brisbane. Tim moved back to Perth in 2009 and I moved back home to Perth soon after that too. And the rest is history – and at least we know that if we can make it through Hawaiian shirt-wearing periods and living at opposite ends of the country, we can get through anything!”

Photos today are by Natasja Kremers Photography. Nastasja captures images with such a grace and integrity, today’s wedding is beautifully captured with a beautiful sense of style.

Lindsay assembled the bouquets herself, with a little help! She says “I held a ‘bouquet making sweatshop’ the morning before the wedding. Tara (my Matron of Honour), good friend Sally, Aunty Wendy, Mum and I stripped all the flowers I bought from the local flower market that morning, and put together my and the bridesmaids bouquets. My Aunty Wendy also put together all the boutonnieres for the groomsmen and my Dad.”

Lindsay’s elegant gown was created by Zansis Couture. “‘ I wore the Bow Dress. I saw it in a magazine, and knew it was the one for me. I wore a vintage art deco rhinestone brooch in my hair, and a pair of pearl and diamond earrings Tim gave me on my 30^th birthday.”

Her bridesmaids? They wore polka dots of course! Lindsay recalls “I got the bridesmaids outfits from Review. Who can go past polka-dots for cute ‘50s flair?”

Lindsay’ friends helped her create the stationery for the day. “The invites were designed by me and my good friend Megan (who is now also my sister-in-law!). I knew I wanted to incorporate photos from our engagement shoot with Tasj, which I had purposely styled in a vintage fashion for this purpose. I briefed Megs, who is a graphic designer, in the style I wanted, and sent her through a lot of pictures and examples for inspiration and she laid them out for us. We couldn’t have been happier with the end product.”

The church books were designed by Dan Agostino, one of the designers at my work (I work in an advertising agency), and printed on the same stock as the invites. Tara very kindly tied all the booklets together for me.”

Lindsay and Tim were married at  St Columba’s Church in South Perth “We got married at St Columba Church in South Perth. Tim’s family has a strong connection with the school. He and his sister went to school there, and his Aunty Pat taught at the school for many, many years. Many of his family were baptised there, and it was also where they had the funeral of Tim’s Dad who died a few years ago. My family’s Parish Priest, Fr Phillip Fleay, performed the ceremony, so we had a nice mix of things important to both our families.” Tim wore a custom made suit by a tailor he uses in Singapore for his work suits.

Music during the ceremony was important for the couple, Lindsay recalls. “My very talented sister sang at the ceremony for us. As well as singing a bunch of great old jazz and blues songs while the guests arrived at church, she also sang the Etta James song, ‘At Last’,  as my Dad and I walked down the aisle. It was a very special moment – my dear old, normally gruff Dad got very emotional walking his baby daughter down the aisle to the sound of his eldest daughter singing, and started crying. It was definitely a moment I won’t forget.

My sister also sang ‘This Old Love’ by Lior during the signing of the registry, and ‘The Best is Yet to Come’ by Frank Sinatra as we left the church happily married.”

The couple left the ceremony in Lindsay’s Archie. “Tim bought me a 1952 baby blue Morris Minor – which I promptly christened Archie – for my birthday last year that we decided to use as our wedding car. I’m not sure if you’ve been in a Morris Minor, but they aren’t big, so we were a bit flummoxed as to how we were going to fit my Dad, Tara and Nairah (the bridesmaids extraordinaire) and I, in Archie.

Tim and I were driving down our street in January when we spied a white 1950s Morris Minor in the garage of a house about 20 doors down for us. What luck! Luckier still that Sue, the owner of the white Morris – christened Molly – was as lovely as she was, and not only let us borrow her car for the day, but offered to be Chauffeur too. So that’s how we had Molly and Archie the Morris Minors as our very special wedding cars.”

The couple had photographs taken with their bridal party at their Perth home.

The Perth Zoo was the location for the celebrations. Lindsay recalls “The reception was held over two locations at the Perth Zoo, which is an amazing venue. Straight after the ceremony, we organised Champagne and a ‘Shucker’, and the Howie Morgan Jazz Trio at the Palm Terrace of the zoo, to keep guests happy and occupied while we were having our photos back at our house. This is where we also had the bonbonniere (Chinese parasols for the ladies, and straw trilby’s for the gents with Hawaiian shirt material sewn into the hatband) and the guests name tags – most with a personalised little caption about the guest, which served as a great ice-breaker.”

Although Lindsay styled her bouquet herself, she hired a professional for the church and reception flowers. “Rebecca Grace from Natural Art Flowers supplied the church and reception flowers. I wanted ‘English Country Garden’ flowers, such as Peonies, Dahlia’s and Narcissus – but we’re a bit limited for choice in February in Perth (too hot for such delicate flowers!), so instead we chose flowers for their unusual form and texture.”

A three tiered cake complimented a cake buffet. Lindsay explains, “The amazing cake was made and decorated by one of my oldest friends, Paula Fitzgerald. Paula and I were next-door neighbours pretty much since we were born. Lucky for us, Paula grew up to be a pastry chef! She now runs her own cakes and cupcakes catering company Caterpillar Bites and made our delicious Chocolate Mud wedding cake. I gave her a pretty loose brief around the decoration – the old-fashioned garden party theme we were going for, the bows on my dress, and she knows I love pink – and she concocted this amazing design.

The darling keepsake topper was made by MilkTea by bthanari, a seller I found on etsy. Not only are Tim and I on the topper in replica wedding outfits (down to the bows on my dress), but it features our dear pets too; Atticus Finch our Labrador, and Britney Spears (yes, that’s her name) our very spoilt cat. We were really happy we were able to include our pets in the wedding in some way, without (hopefully) looking like crazy cat/dog people.

As well as serving the wedding cake and macaroons for dessert, all made by my friend Paula, my Dad also made a Eurasian almond cake, and my mum, a coconut cake for the dessert table too.”

The start of the ceremony had a surprise touch from Lindsay’s colleagues. “One of my friends James Wills, a copy-writer at my work, wrote a funny story about how we met (including the Hawaiian shirt) which we included in the invite, so that our guests would feel even more part of the wedding. As a surprise all my boy cousins and my uncles formed a Hawaiian shirt wearing guard-of-honour for Tim and me as we entered the reception. It was fabulous – one of the highlights of the day.

As we were having a cocktail party, instead of a traditional sit-down reception, we wanted to make sure everyone mingled, met new people and made new friends, so I made name tags for all guests out of shipping tags and old books. As well as their name, the tag also included a funny tid-bit about each person as a conversation starter, which was a hit with everyone.”

The feel of the day was really important to Lindsay. “The main reception was held on the Oak Lawn at the Zoo. We hired a big marquee and had the area decked out with big round white and small coloured Chinese lanterns strung between the marquee and the trees. We also hired couches, low tables and oriental rugs which were placed around the outside area surrounding the marquee. We also had some traditional round tables inside the marquee, so the oldies could sit down.

I had a very definite idea of the type of wedding I wanted. Tim just wanted to make sure everyone had a great party, so he – thankfully – left the details of the styling to me. I wanted the wedding to feel like an old-fashioned garden party. I set the theme by making the Save the Date cards out of shipping tags and vintage findings I sourced on Etsy.  I also spent the months leading up to the big day trawling local swap-meets purchasing old teacups, teapots and unusual shaped jars which we used as vases at the reception. My Matron-of-Honour also kept her eye out for jars me.  I sewed metres and metres of bunting to hang in the marquee and made all the little signs for the wedding cake, present and dessert table. My new Aunty Pat helped out and made cushions out of vintage fabric, which we scattered on the couches to add colour. My new cousin Emma, also helped out, and sewed hatbands out of Hawaiian shirt material, for the straw trilby’s we gave away as the men’s bonbonnierre.”

One of Lindsay’s favourite memories was the speeches. She recalls “The speeches were brilliant, our Mum’s spoke on behalf of our respective families. They were both so nervous beforehand, but both did so well. The Matron of Honour and best man’s speech were superb – best on ground for sure. Each speech was hilarious and touching at the same time… They’re both quite competitive, so I think they might have been secretly trying to outdo the other.

There were a lot of little funny stories that happened on the day – starting with Ross, one of our dear friends who was in charge of driving the bridesmaids to the church in Archie. There was a big traffic jam in both directions of the freeway, so Ross was running very late to pick them up, which caused a few palpitations. In fact so many of the guests were stuck in the traffic, I had to sit in the bridal car at the church waiting for them to arrive – my Dad and I were waving at all the late-comers dashing in for a good fifteen minutes before we could enter. At the reception we had a guest who transformed himself into a poet by request for the evening and performed poems on demand (with mixed results), and another guest who split his pants from all the dancing he was doing.”

The first dance was also a highlight for the bride. “We danced to “Everything” by Michael Buble…it was great fun but also a bit nerve-wracking – we had learnt a routine  which involved lots of lifting and twirling, and could have gone horribly wrong in lots of places…luckily it all went fine and we’re pretty sure we heard lots of ‘ooohs’ & ‘ahhhs’ from our family and friends…”

Congratulations Lindsay and Tim! Thank you for sharing your wedding day with us today on Polka Dot Bride! Thank you also to  Natasja Kremers Photography for sharing today’s photographs!

Photos by Natasja Kremers Photography

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