Well today we wind up the last of our feature on the wedding of James and Erica (Girl With A Satchel)

As they approach their first wedding anniversary, Erica shared her after wedding thoughts and tips for brides to be!

The Aftermath

What were you happiest with?

A good friend of mine said she could literally feel the love in the room at the reception. So, I guess were were happy to be able to create a warm atmosphere with lots of fun and laughter (and good lighting and music, which I laboriously selected!). We were really happy with the speeches and the reception in general.

Erica and James enjoying their wedding reception

What is your tip to other brides?

Don’t plan an interstate wedding – and if you must, have it at a venue where everything is done for you. We spent a lot of time fussing about finishing things and I didn’t really have time to relax into the moment, which was a shame. I was one wired bride!

Make sure you have a few days beforehand just to relax a bit (as much as you can!), enjoy your family and friends and get a bit of R&R.

What inspires you?

Beautiful things and beautiful people. As I write a blog devoted to magazines, I get a lot of inspiration from my glossies, as well as trawling the web.

I’m also a big nature-lover, so getting outdoors is great for my soul. And, of course, God. I read the Bible daily and try to live my life in accordance to what it teaches. It’s inspiring to think we’ve all been created with a unique purpose in mind (mine includes shopping, of course)!

Erica and her bridesmaids navigate the stunning Mt Tamborine

Apart from the ceremony, what were you favourite moments of your wedding day?

Seeing my daddy, Jim’s song, Andy’s best man’s speech, admiring my beautiful bridesmaids, spending time with the girls and mum, and my sister saying in her speech that it was the best day of her life. Gosh, I’m going to cry!

Where did you go for your honeymoon?

We spent six lovely nights in Noosaville. With all the interstate planning, we would have been mad to plan an overseas trip on top of everything, so we just packed up the car and cruised north.

We were both exhausted after the lead-up to the wedding, so we were happy to just lie by the pool, eat and sleep!

James and Erica’s Wedding Vendors

Photography Adam Weathered Bridal Gown Rosaline Ribbons from Melbourne Avenue Bridesmaids Princess Charlotte by Charlie Brown Suits Roger David Hair Boss Hair & Beauty Makeup Aimie Fieberg Invitations Poppies For Grace Catering Shamar Catering

Thankyou Erica for providing such lovely detailed answers to my questions and allowing me to share them with Polka Dot Bride readers! Your wedding looked gorgeous. So relaxed and full of love! Congratulations to you and James on your first wedding anniversary!

Today our Real bride Erica of Girl With A Satchel shares her wedding day details with us.

Tell me about your ‘details’? favours, centerpieces etc

The table centrepieces featured bluebirds.

As there were bluebirds on the invitations, I decided to use them as a motif for the reception. My friend Aime’s mum made amazing table centerpieces: little bluebirds nestled amongst branches covered in crystals and berries mounted in clear vases filled with white pebbles.

I loved them. And they were a labour of love for Jen – each one took hours to make! We ordered little brown favours bags with the bluebird motif through our invitation designers, Poppies for Grace, and filled them with caramels and éclairs we bought from Big W, then tied them up with navy-blue ribbon, in keeping with the colour theme. The table settings and tablecloths and chair covers were all white.

Tell me about your flowers? Why did you choose them? Where were they used?

Erica’s bouquet

We had a local florist create posies of lisianthus and baby roses. Divine!

What music did you walk down the aisle to?

Vanessa Carlton’s ‘A Thousand Miles’. It was symbolic of our long-distance relationship!

Did you have any special parts to your ceremony?

Erica and James during their wedding ceremony.

As we’re both committed Christians, we wanted the ceremony to honour God and our commitment to centreing our marriage around him. We chose the readings and hymns carefully (Amazing Grace and Chris Tomlin’s “Indescribable”) but didn’t want to alienate our non-Christian guests, so it was all very light and good humoured. We had two reverends overseeing the proceedings – a family friend and the minister from the church – which was a little different.

Did you have a something old, new borrowed blue? If so what were they?

Umm, not really! There was blue on my garter, I had an old purse, my shoes were new and, well, I guess I forgot to borrow something!

Did you DIY anything for your wedding? Tell me about it?

Apart from the centerpieces made by my friend’s mother and stuffing the favour bags with sweets, nope. Unless you include the marquee, in which Jim did all the lighting (we bought paper lights from Bunnings to keep it soft) and the cupcakes (made by Jim’s aunt Muriel) we had for dessert. Oh, and I compiled seven CDs of music for our DJ to play throughout the night. It took ages but was worth it – I had people asking me to burn them copies!

What perfume did you wear?

Ralph Lauren Romance.

What traditions did you keep? Which ones did you throw out the window?

Erica and James

It was traditional in the sense that we kept to the ceremony within the conventions of our faith (though we’re not aligned with any particular church) but otherwise we weren’t too fussed with formalities.

I wanted my sister to speak at the reception, as she’s my best friend, and our wedding dance wasn’t rehearsed – there was too much other entertainment to think about.

Next- Erica shares her post wedding thoughts!

The juicy talk of the wedding day often gives me goosebumps. Today the face behind Girl With A Satchel shares her big day to husband James with Polka Dot Bride.

The Day

Tell me about what you wore? How did you decide on it?

Though I was never the kind of girl to keep a ‘My Wedding Day’ scrapbook (like Andi in ‘How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days’), I religiously keep clippings from magazines in big style journals. I’d kept a picture of Carmen Kass in a white Valentino dress from about 2001 and just always assumed I’d wear something similar on my wedding day. I went through the ritual of trying on dresses in the stores, but I just knew I wanted something unique and special, using the Valentino design for inspiration.

What about what your husband and attendants wore?

As the girls were in navy, I was adamant that the boys be in grey. We chose a lovely grey suit with a fine pinstripe at Roger David in Brisbane. The groomsmen wore navy shirts and ties, while Jim wore a white shirt and grey/silver tie.

How did you get to the wedding?

Jim hired two beautiful silver… gosh, I forget what kind of car they were! Will have to ask Jim and get back to you. I know they were big and German!

Tell me about your wedding day?

I had no sleep the night before, as I was running checklists over in my head. I’d arrived in Queensland just days before and everything was really hectic. I was literally laying out place settings in the marquee at 7pm the night before the wedding!

As I hadn’t slept a wink, my sister and Caelia, who’d spent the night with me, took me on a little walk to get some fresh air. Then we had brekkie – fruit and yoghurt – and my mum dropped by to make sure we were getting ready to head to the hairdresser. My friend Brooke picked us up and we went to Boss Hair and Beauty at Mermaid Beach to commence the beautification process. It was really fun having all the girls there. We had champagne and banana bread and sandwiches. My makeup artist, Aimie Fiebig, flew up from Sydney, so she got to work as soon as she arrived.

Once we were all done, mum drove us up to Mount Tamborine to get changed and have photos taken at Jim’s Aunty Muriel’s home. Dad arrived and teared up a bit, then my page boy and flower girl arrived looking adorable. After the pre-wedding photo shoot, we got into the cars and headed for the church (St. George’s Anglican Church).

The church was packed when we got there and the nerves (and my emotions) finally hit me. When the bridal procession music started (Vanessa Carlton’s A Thousand Miles, played on piano by our friend Karis), the girls prompted our page boy and flower girl (Jim’s nephew and niece) and then followed. Dad took my arm quite proudly (as daddies do) and headed for Jim. I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.

Erica and James at their wedding ceremony in St George’s Anglican Church

The service seemed to go forever (our preacher, Rhys, was quite verbose!) but there was lots of laughter and music. Our friends Charmaine and Mike read Bible verses (Jim and I are both committed Christians) and Jim’s parents prayed over us.

After the ceremony, we headed outside to greet our guests and have the first photos taken. It was overcast and getting dark fast, so we had to make a quick exit and head to the locations we’d planned.

I had a blast at the reception. Just having everyone you love in the one room is such a buzz. Our MC, my then-boss Sarah Oakes (Girlfriend/Cleo), kept everything together and made our guests relaxed. Then we had possibly the longest toasts and speeches of all-time – thankfully, they were very entertaining! Jim’s dad, my father, my sister, Jim’s best man and cousin Andy and Jim and I all made speeches. Andy’s best man’s speech has everyone cracking up from start to finish, and he ended it with an acoustic number on his guitar.

James playing the song he played during his proposal to Erica at their wedding reception.

Jim and his band played the song we’d written (and, by that stage, finished) for me after his speech. Then it was time to party before departing for our first night together as a married couple!

The Reception

What did you dance to?

Erica and James take to the floor for their first dance.

Lauryn Hill’s “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You”

What did you eat?

We had Shamar Catering take care of everything. They served the guests canapés before we arrived, then we had two vegetarian entrees (a grilled Mediterranean vegetable salad and avocado, bocconcini and tomato tart), chicken and beef for mains (chicken with parmesan and oregano crust; grilled tenderloin of beef) and chocolate cupcakes with white icing made by Jim’s aunt Muriel for dessert.

Cutting the cupcake wedding cake!

What about your cake?

As above – we had 150 cupcakes made for the guests and our wedding fruit cake (which we’re saving for our April anniversary) was made by Jim’s aunt Anne.

Stay tuned- next up, Erica tells us about her wedding details!

One of my favourite blogs is Girl With A Satchel, Erica, a writer and lady of the Australian magazine circuit writes a fabulous, witty commentary on all things glossy (which is very helpful for my own addiction, which one to buy and which one to skip!).

For those playing at home, you might have seen Erica grace the pages of Bride To Be magazine recently in their “Your Day” annual (or any number of the magazines she’s worked at!).

Erica was lovely enough to share some of the special details of her wedding day. As Erica is a writer she wrote some fantastic answers to my varied and many questions!

So I hail this week- Erica & James Week! Erica & James had such a beautiful wedding it’s too much for one post (plus there are plenty of pictures too!)! So I’ll be sharing the details of their wedding all this week!

Let’s start off with the sweet story of how Erica and James met….

Here’s Erica, doesn’t she look thrilled about answering Polka Dot’s bride many questions?

The Planning

How did you meet?

My mother, sister and I were on holiday at Burleigh Beach in the summer of ‘04/’05. Every morning we’d go for a walk along the esplanade. I’d recently broken up with a boyfriend and decided that one of my new year’s resolutions would be to take up surfing – something I’d always wanted to do. I’d noticed a surf school stand on one of our morning walks and I decided to check it out. Jim happened to be working there that morning (he did surf coaching part-time in the summer with his cousin, Andy).

I enquired about surf lessons and he was very obliging and encouraging. He was the hottest guy I’d ever seen – his smile could melt a polar ice cap. A great incentive to sign up! I returned a couple of days later for my first surf lesson, but unfortunately he wasn’t taking the class. So I continued to casually walk by the surf school, keeping an eye open for The Hot Guy. My mother and sister found this very amusing!

Burleigh Beach as captured by luvjnx

After hiring my own board and returning it to him, we had another nice chat, so I resolved to ask him out: what did I have to lose? The next day he was working at the surf stand, so I rocked up and asked if he’d like to have a drink or dinner that night. He said that would be great and he’d call me later in the day. I waited by the phone like a lovesick teenager! We went on our first date (a Mexican restaurant) and spent a lot of time together over the three days before I went home.

After that, we maintained a friendship, then decided to give long-distance dating a go – there was no denying the connection (we’d talk for HOURS non-stop on the phone). The rest, as they say, is history!

How did the proposal happen?

Burleigh Beach, of course! I was completely taken by surprise. He picked me up from the airport on October 5, 2006, at around 7pm and took me to Burleigh for a drink. Then he decided a nice walk would be a good idea. I followed him up to a lookout, with only the moon lighting the way, whingeing that I was scared of the dark!

I thought it was very strange. As we neared the lookout, I saw hundreds of little tealights lining the path, with rose petals scattered everywhere. There were tealights surrounding the lookout and more rose petals, and a table with a white tablecloth with two chairs, two champagne glasses and his guitar.

He told me that I was very special to him and to sit down because he’d written a song for me. He played the song (which he also played at the wedding), then got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. I was so taken aback I hesitated, then said yes. I was utterly gobsmacked!

Erica and James as newlyweds!

What ‘feel’ did you want for your wedding?

I wanted it to reflect us. I’m a minimalist, so I wanted everything to be as simple and fuss-free as possible. We were going to have the reception at Oscars at Burleigh but eventually decided on having it in a marquee on his parents’ property on Mount Tamborine, which is like heaven.

How did you decide on your colour palette?

Things just fell into place! We found the bridesmaid dresses in Charlie Brown on our first shopping venture and as they were navy blue, I decided navy and white would underpin all the decorating and the invitations, etc. The motif of bluebirds came from the invitation design by Poppies For Grace.

Erica and her bridesmaids

Tell me about your attendants?

I had five bridesmaids – my sister, Jessica, Jim’s sister, Melissa, and my three dearest friends, Aime, Brooke and Caelia. They each brought something special to the planning and the day itself. I was so in love with them all on the wedding day – they were my rocks!

What was your hardest decision?

Settling on a date and the venue, definitely. After that was settled, everything else just flowed.

What was your easiest decision?

Choosing bridesmaids, deciding to have my dress made and flowers. Easy peasy!

Stay tuned- next up Erica shares her wedding day story with us!