Leading up to our wedding day, Hamish and I were so blessed with wonderful vendors to work with. All of those who contributed to our wedding were fun, easy going and so lovely.

Below I have listed all these yummy people who I would recommend over and over again.

Bridesmaids Dresses

My stunning bridesmaids wore dark blue Alfred Sung dresses from Bridesmaids Only. I worked with Talia there to find a dress that suited all the girls and their various hair colours. Talia was phenomenal and I still speak to her often.

Photographer

As a Wedding Planner I met Jonathan from Vibrant Photography at the boutique hotel I was working for at the time. Jonathan has a fun professionalism second to none. Jonathan is a brilliant professional and lovely person. He is so easy to be around. I loved the light he embraces in his photographs. Jonathan captured all the little moments so perfectly and kept coming up with amazing ideas of photos to take and ways to take them. You can tell Jonathan loves what he does and doesn’t take for granted the opportunity to share people special days with them.

Hair

I discovered Travis George Hair at Wentworth Point (formerly Homebush Bay). Travis and his team were so fun and chilled to be around. My bridesmaids and I arrived at Travis George Hair early in the morning still in our PJ’s. The morning was so fun and when Danielle Lewy the makeup artist arrive the party kicked up a gear. The whole team understood my hair vision. All my bridesmaids have beautiful, thick hair which I wanted to embrace. So we went for a Bohemian Curly look.

Makeup

Danielle Lewy was a friend of two of my closest girlfriends. I was a bit stuck as to who to get to do my makeup. I didn’t want anything too ‘out there’ or dramatic looking. I am a natural girl by nature. I struggled finding someone who, like me was a bit minimal. When my girlfriends told me about Danielle I was elated. She is so young and funky and her makeup mirrors that. Danielle and I trialled my makeup style for my e’session and we were really happy with that look. I was 21 when I got married and my bridesmaids were all young as well. I didn’t want them to look too mature. Danielle respected that and the girls looks stunning on the day. Danielle is now a dear friend and I am always recommending her.

Florist

My florist Jennie, from Merci Bouquet, was the sweetest lady I could imagine dealing with. I wanted my wedding to have layers of different flowers and textures. I wanted lots of whites, foliage, dashes of blue and leather. I was so pleased to see what she came up with! They were perfect!

Rings

My rings were designed by Hamish and made at Christensons Jewellers, Round Corner, Sydney

All Photos By: Jonathan Dear, Vibrant Photography

Ms Gingham says: Gorgeous combination of midnight blue dresses with raspberry red shoes!

Cassandra says: “My name is Cassandra. I am 22 about to turn 23. I got married just after my 21st Birthday to the man who had been my best friend since I was eight. I am the owner of Jillian Boyd Weddings & Events, based in The Hills District of Sydney, NSW”

Colours Midnight BlueMilk ChocolateRaspberry Red | Inspired Weddings, Inspired Weddings, Weddings | Comments 1

Chris and Carly

I’ve often had the vibe from others that engagement photos are a tad indulgent & cheesy, and they’re something more common in the US than here in Australia. My fiance Chris and I had our engagement photos taken a few weeks ago, and regardless of what others think, we absolutely loved both the shoot and the finished result! I’d highly recommend an engagement shoot to other engaged couples, especially if you’re having a long engagement.

In particular, I’d suggest picking your wedding photographer first, and asking if they can take engagement photos. We paid extra for ours, but Chris and I both agree it was money well spent.

Here’s why I think engagement photos are so important:

• I’m sure I’m not the only female who’s overly critical of certain areas of my body - like my batwing arms. I spent the two weeks after our photo shoot, before we saw the first bunch of photos in “post-exam-esque paralysis”, second guessing all the styling and posing decisions I’d made. I was sure all the photos would be of my “massive” arms and that I’d be disappointed.  All that evaporated when Tess sent us the link to our photos. I started crying. They were so beautiful, and most particularly, they brought out our best. All the self-doubt washed away. I wasn’t looking at my arms, my necklace, my hair… I was looking at love – my love for Chris and his love for me. They are the absolute best illustration that an awesome photographer will capture you at your very best regardless of how you see yourself. Most importantly, it has completely put me at ease for our wedding photos. I know they’ll look amazing, and that I don’t need to fret about mindless little insecurities.

• As for the shoot itself, it was fantastic to see how Tess works and to actually be able to relax and have fun with the photos without the mess of emotions and the time pressure we’ll have on our big day. We had a great time, felt comfortable with her and with total public PDA – now we know what to expect on our wedding day. Even better, the pier photos were taken at roughly the time we’ll be taking some of our wedding photos, in the same location at the same time of year. As long as the weather holds, we know we’ll have beautiful light on our wedding day. Because we got engaged here, and we’re being married at the Yacht Squadron, it just felt right to have some of our engagement photos taken there too. We plan to use the photos for our save the dates and invites, and I know I’ll be struggling to choose which photos to use

In the background is the Royal Melbourne Yacht Squadron, our ceremony and reception venue!

For me, the best thing to come out of our engagement photoshoot – other than truly amazing photos – is complete reassurance. Reassurance that we made a great choice of photographer, reassurance that our wedding photos will be everything we hope for, reassurance that I don’t need to stress about my body. And with another round of dress shopping planned for this weekend, it’s great to know I don’t need to be quite so worried about covering my bat wings!

If you’re considering engagement photos, but are slightly on the fence – or your fiance is on the fence – I urge you to go for it. I’m going to be so much more relaxed at the wedding now we’ve had a “dress rehearsal”. And we have some amazing photos we can frame to remind of us this stage of our relationship. I’m so happy!

Photos by Tess Follet

Ms Gingham says: I’m enjoying following Carly’s story immensely! I can’t wait to see how it all comes together!

Carly says: “My “day job” is as a receptionist (hoping to get a new job soon!) but I also run my own pageant site – long explanation needed there but it brings me a lot of satisfaction, I’ve made some amazing friends in the US and was even blessed to have them donate two and a half grand to get me to Vegas for the show last year. ”

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Relaxed elegance was the theme at Vicki and Luke’s Beautiful Cable Beach Wedding, and today Vicki shares how she ensured that they and their guests felt like they were on “Broome-time”!

Vicki advises, “Enjoy the planning, stick to a theme that reflects your personality and run with it”.

“Be completely organised at least a week before as your wedding day goes by so fast and you do not want to spend a minute of your day stressing about anything. I surely didn’t and it was amazing”

Photos by Angela Higgins

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Josh and I both agree that we want to have a small intimate wedding ceremony but between us we have a lot of friends and extended family, and then of course once you add in all their partners and kids it suddenly turns into quite the invite list! So while we really want to celebrate with all our friends and family we knew we wouldn’t be able to invite everyone and still have an intimate wedding. Our solution to this problem . . . we decided throw a big engagement celebration and invite everyone, and hope no one feels left out when we do actually have our small wedding.

I am a bit of craft junky so for a month leading up to the picnic I commandeered the lounge room for crafting and DIY. We had chosen to have a relaxed riverside picnic full of colourful games and silliness and wanted to have as much as possible handmade either by ourselves or friends. We chose JH Abrahams Reserve in Crawley as our location because we thought that it would be great to be by the river and have a light breeze on a sunny February afternoon.

On the day itself our ‘light breeze’ turned into the windiest day of the month and our quiet riverside park was overtake with windsurfers and none of our guests could park anywhere nearby! But luckily the wind eased off and the sun came out just in time, but the down side was that a lot of the DIY we had made wasn’t suitable to set up on such a windy day. Luckily we were still able to set set up picnic blankets, baskets full of snacks, punch, homebrew, bunting, chalkboard signs and any of the games that weren’t likely to get blown away. All our guests were given name badges (we had a friend draw them and then we hired a badge press from HB Displays to press them all), it was a great way for all of our friends and family who hadn’t met each other to be able to break the ice.

We bullied our guests into running 3-legged races, sack races, backwards running races (not such a good choice with a few people ending upside down), and ended it all with an Amazing Race style game. This involved teams of two (adorned in sports bibs with cut outs of our favourite things sewed on), going through a series of challenges that represented things we do together as a couple. These were; crafting a silly hat (because I like to craft and Josh puts up with my craziness); decorating and eating a cupcake (because I bake and Josh eats my baking); untangling a cord from a box of tangled cords (because Josh has a ridiculous box of electrical cords he’s saving for a ‘rainy day’); drinking a cup of chilli homebrew (I make special extra spicy chilli beer for Josh); and then piggyback racing to the finish line (one of the first gifts Josh ever gave me was a voucher for unlimited piggy back rides).

It was so much fun watching our friends and family getting involved in the games and we even roped one of my best friends into being our sports commentator for the day!

At the end of the afternoon we had prizes for all the winners and to finish it off we had Mexican ice treats from La Paleta delivered for everyone to pig out on. It was a a great day, albeit exhausting, busy and with a lot of preparation, but I am so glad we were able to have such a big celebration with everyone…. it has made me look forward to a small wedding even more!

Special thanks to our photographer Monica Defendiand friend Ayesha Lapinski for capturing these amazing pics.

Ms Gingham says: This post makes me wish I was there. What a great day and organized so well! Crazy hats off to Rafeena and Josh!

Rafeena says: “During the day I am writing/researching/stressing about my PhD (Science) and at night I look for any creative outlet I can find to make up for the lack of work the right side of my brain gets. I have a grand love of anything old and vintagey, a compulsion to organise and an ability to do crafty stuff, but my handwriting is comparable to a 6 year olds and I always mix up song lyrics when I sing in the shower.”

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Happy Friday! Happy Polka Dot Hot Spot! Time to get the steel capped boots on and have an open post of sorts. This one is on the touchy subject of alcohol.

With wedding meals being pricey in themselves, are you going for a set beverage package? Have you chosen to have an open bar? A cash bar? Are you providing all alcohol including spirits?

Share your choices!

Polka Dot Hot Spot, Weddings | Comments 1