Secret Bride’s Business is a new Sydney event just for the bride to be and her girlfriends and is set to be a great day of wedding bliss for Sydney brides!

Held at the luxurious Shangri-La hotel, Secret Brides’s Business had brought together some top names in the Sydney wedding industry to make planning your wedding fun! The event features a decadent Shangri-La high tea, champagne, pedicures and makeup trials. There will be experts to advise you on the right dress for your shape, invitation advice and even gift registry advice. Over eight couturiers will be showing new season designs in a runway show and each guest will receive a gift gown valued at $200

Instead of being forced to compete with thousands of other people at a typical expo, Secret Bride’s Business aims to offer a stress free, enjoyable event to help you find suppliers and plan your wedding.  Amongst the companies appearing are Blumenthal Photography, Alex Perry, Xsight Photography & Video, Petal Bridal Couture and Mark Holt Bridal Couture.

Sydney 7th-8th of March 2009
The Shangri-La Hotel Sydney
Times: 10am to 2pm and 1pm to 5pm
Tickets $95.00

Purchase tickets through the Secret Brides’s Business website.

I’m always on the lookout for beautiful Australian native bouquets so when I stumbled across the wedding of Hans and Anke on photographer Scott Carle’s blog I was thrilled!

Not only was the wedding beautiful (the couple wed at sunrise and came all the way from Germany for an Aussie wedding) but I just love the colours in Anke’s bouquet. The rich inky blues, reds and yellows. It’s like a vivid oil painting.

There are plenty of Australian native flowers and leaves you can use for your wedding bouquet

• Proteas
• Wattle
• Gymea lillies
• Geraldton wax
• Grevellia
• Banksias
• Eucalyptus
• Gumnuts
• Callistemon
• Acacias
• Waratahs
• Kangaroo paws
• Paper daisies

(Check out more of the wedding of Hans and Anke here)

Today’s expert is a bright spark in the Western Australia wedding industry. Sue-Lyn Moyle of Margaret River FIne Art Photography. Sue-Lyn has the ability to capture beautiful detail in her surroundings and she’s also committed to being environmentally friendly.  Working along side her is Tammie and the two girls can often be found on the grass, with legs in the air capturing the perfect shot!. Sue-Lnn is not only talented at capturing weddings, but she’s also an avid art photographer and has even held exhibitions of her personal work. (Which you can view on her personal site)
Tell me about yourself?

I’m in love with photography for starters! I also love traveling and having a camera with me means I can bring home a lasting reminder of an exciting moment, exotic location or the awesome people I’ve met on the way.

How did you get into photography?

My earliest memories of taking photos are when I was about eight years old. I would borrow my parents’ old film camera and set up stunts with my younger brother. Once I dragged the trampoline inside and placed it at the bottom of the staircase so I could take photos of him jumping off and bouncing high into the air! I would get a huge buzz out of seeing the results a few days later once the film was developed. Later, I got the same buzz developing film by hand in the university darkrooms where I completed a photomedia and journalism degree.

What is your point of difference from others?

I am a practicing art photographer and photojournalist and I love exploring society through photography and weddings are no exception.  Having started out by taking photos on film, I learnt a certain awareness and patience for the right moment before releasing the shutter.

How do you keep on learning? How do you keep your product fresh and different?

I love that photography for me is a constantly evolving process – every shoot is different as I learn more about the people and places I’m photographing. I also love experimenting and trying out new ideas.

What inspires you in your photography?

I’m inspired by imagery that makes the viewer linger and look again. Photographers whose works inspire me include Annie Leibovitz and wedding photographer Jessica Claire.

Photography is more than the ‘cute’ or ‘beautiful’ shot. What captures you to then say, ‘that would make a great shot’?

The moments where I think ‘that’s a great shot’ are usually the ones that would otherwise go unnoticed and the subjects in the photo are often unaware of their photo being taken. It can be a slice of a moment of flurry where everyone in the scene is concentrating individually on what they are doing or simply the moment of a quick, but knowing glance between two people.

What are you passionate about in your profession?

The Margaret River region of Western Australia is a place I find so immensely beautiful and inspiring with it’s landscape of lush fields, rolling vineyards and pristine coastline. It’s a place made for romance. Everyday here is so visually rewarding and I love to share and show off this region to those who visit and choose to host their special day here.

What is your number one tip for brides?

Don’t forget to wear sunscreen! And the same goes for the groom and bridal party.

Tell me about your wedding or your dream wedding?

My dream wedding would probably take place on a secluded, pristine, white sandy beach with closest friends and family; and a big bonfire party afterwards!

What are your favourite wedding photograph ideas?

I love it when the bride and groom get involved in ideas for their wedding photography, such as bringing in hay bales to an empty field or showing off their personality through decorations, far out locations (Germany!) and even hire cars – like Samba the bright red VW Combi van.

What do you love about Australian brides?

Their great use of colour and sense of adventure.

How do you plan your shots so that each bride has a unique ‘story’ of her wedding?

I’m always thinking ahead and preempting what will be happening next as well as concentrating on the smaller details that make up a wedding day.

What was your most memorable wedding moment?

I was so pleased to see a bride spend her whole wedding day smiling and without a care in the world even after an accident a few days before had left her with a small fracture in her skull, meaning she couldn’t fly to their Mauritius honeymoon!

What are the biggest mistakes you see brides making?

Holding back on the photography – the images you have from your wedding day are what you’ll look back at time and time again in years to come, which makes it so important to commission the right photographer for you and not base your decision purely on cost.

Cleverest ideas you’ve seen?

Using wine barrels for wishing wells, wine corks for placeholders, printing favourite images onto canvas and having a mini wedding album to keep in your purse.

5 things a bride and groom must get right?

Their photographer!, being able to relax on their wedding day, having a backup indoor venue for winter weddings, putting enough time aside for photographs and to just have fun and be yourself in front of the camera.

Thank you for sharing the thoughts behind your work Sue-Lyn! You can find out more about Sue-Lyn and see more of the work of her business Margaret River Fine Art Photography at her website!

Polka Dot Bride readers know I love a good wedding movie. I never expect them to change my life, to teach life lessons or to have a heavy moral ending. But I was apprehensive to see Bride Wars, I’d read one review which said the movie put women back 40 years!

The movie starts off with the two best friends (Emma and Liv played by Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway) getting married scenario. There’s a few laughs, a few dreamy moments as the girls fawn over Vera Wang, Tiffany & Co and the fairytale that is a New York wedding. The wedding planner (Candice Bergen) quips  “A wedding marks the first day of the rest of your life. You have been dead until now. Were you aware of that? You’re dead right now.”

The tide suddenly turns and the girls get nasty pulling all sorts of tricks and ploys to force the others decision and make life miserable. Of course like any romantic comedy, both brides end up sad and lonely and the stress eventually puts tension on already fragile engagements.

There is a moral undertone- albeit it a light one. The wedding planner summed it up.

“It was quite a wedding and as i stood there watching i realized something I’d  forgotten a long time ago. Sometimes in life there really are bonds formed that can never be broken. Sometimes you really can find that one person who will stand by you no matter what. Maybe you will find it in a spouse and celebrate it with your dream wedding. But there’s also the chance that the one person you can count on for a lifetime, the one person who knows you sometimes better than you know yourself is the same person who’s been standing beside you all along.”

This isn’t a movie to see if you’re looking for a movie about the marriage not the wedding. It isn’t going to break down any misconceptions and it probably isn’t going to change your life.

It is however the perfect movie to see with your girlfriends, bridesmaids or your fiance (if you can drag him there!) for a bit of light – hearted relief, a bit of poking fun at the huge elaborate do that is a wedding and a few little tears where your heart longs for the friendship to be rekindled.

In the end, it wasn’t nearly as fluffy as I expected- it had just the right mix of emotion and laughs. My favourite part? The childhood memento that makes a reappearance.  I rate the movie 3/5 dots!

Images from Bride Wars