Anthony and Wendy

Anthony and I initially met whilst studying Film & TV at TAFE 9 years ago. After working on the set of Home & Away for many years together, Anthony popped the question on the steps at Darling Harbour. I work in props and with Anthony’s attention to detail as a Continuity, we knew our wedding was going to be ‘a little different & quirky’.

 

It was raining on the day we viewed Summerlees for the first time and we still fell in love with it. The wedding was on Saturday the 15th October 2011. With a small group of family and friends, we travelled down from Sydney on the Friday to set up the ballroom and the garden for the ceremony. Without their help and patience, we couldn’t have pulled it off.

Hair & Makeup by Sabrina Domenis – [email protected]

Sabrina and I first met on the set of Home & Away and we’ve been friends ever since. My hair is so thick and curly that Sabrina travelled down on the Friday night to straighten my hair and then put it in curlers overnight. And it was worth the uncomfortable sleep!

My dress and bolero are from Jean Fox Parramatta. I searched Sydney high and low for an A-Line tea length dress with no luck. I found plenty on the internet, but really wanted to try one on before I made that leap of buying the unknown. It was just luck that I found this little dress. It had only just arrived in store and wasn’t on display yet. It was love at first sight! My Head piece is from Forever New.

Organising our wedding was surprisingly smooth and easy until……. 4 weeks before the wedding I had an accident at work and almost chopped my thumb off! Ooops…. This photo is a little reminder of how lucky I was to get my cast off in time.

My gorgeous sister in law hand made my garter from scratch with lace, blue ribbon, drop pearls and elastic all for under $10 from Spotlight. My shoes were handmade by Salvio’s in a week! Being dancing shoes, they were super comfy and the heels were perfect on grass.

Anthony had his suit tailored by Chorleys. The groomsmen hired their suits from Chorleys.

Anthony and I chose to have our photos before the Ceremony. Our photographer Gemma Clarke captured our “First Look” and the overall feel of our wedding just perfectly. She captured so many moments throughout the day, we ended up with over 900 photos!

We also drove down the road to Red Cow Farm to get some more happy snaps.

Our theme was ‘Vintage French Provincial with a twist of Excitement!’. Anthony asked me out to the pictures for our first date. So with our love of old and new movies, all things vintage and my French and Spanish heritage –  the colours Red, White and Gold just bounced out at us.

Anista Designs on ETSY made our invites. We rolled them into a scroll and placed them into a ‘LUCKY’ Beer Bottle. We hand wrote our guests names on a cardboard luggage tags. I attached the spotted feathers on with red seal stickers from officeworks. We sealed the bottles with corks from Riot Craft and hand delivered the majority of our invites. I still get a kick when I visit our friends and family and see they’ve held onto the bottle, he really is a happy Buddha spreading cheer.


My antique Engagement ring is from Sydney Antique Centre. Our Wedding rings were made by Carina Jewellers.

At 04:45am on the Friday, I got to the Sydney Flower Markets with my close friend Katherine. And with elbows out, we hunted down the red and orange Ranunculas I was after. I got my close and talented friend Aleks to arrange all 3 bouquets and button holes as she did such a spectacular job arranging her own wedding flowers. The natural coloured bow was a raffia hat piece from spotlight that she teased apart and the handle is wrapped in twine. The early rise was worth the money I saved. Katherine and I went the week before as well to see what was in season and to get inspiration and gather ideas. My aunty lives in Camargue in the south of France and couldn’t be with us on the day. She sent over a traditional Camargue Cross, so I incorporated it into my bouquet in her honour.

I found these amazing Cherry blossom trees whilst at the flower markets. I placed them in xmas tree stands and covered the base with hessian, and we used them as our arches.

Our ceremony started with the ‘2oth Century Fox‘ drum roll and Anthony making a grand entrance on his Vespa. Then he and his boys walked down the aisle to Ennio Morricone’s ‘For a Few Dollars more‘.

My two gorgeous girls made an entrance to ‘Girls Night Out’ from the Down With Love.

My dad walked me down the aisle to Yann Tiersen’s ‘Je suis jamais alle‘ from Amelie. We really wanted our guests to have fun from the word go and as movies and music inspire our everyday lives, we made them a big part of our wedding. One of my favourite memories is waiting behind a tree with my dad and hearing our guests laugh and cheer at each different song.

Janet Lomax was our amazing Celebrant who embraced all our crazy ideas!!

North Palm Beach plays home to ‘Summer Bay’ and Anthony grew up swimming at Austinmer Beach with his family. So we thought a Sand Ceremony was quite fitting and a great way to involve our guests. I bought the glass jar, metal ice buckets and scoops from Hot Dollar.

Anthony’s Auntie Anne plays Perry Como songs at every boxing day family gathering. So we had a lovely moment when we played Perry’s ‘Magic Moments‘.

I picked this Jarvie Lounge up for $250 from Dulwich Hill Salvos. We had all our family photos taken on them. Anthony’s Bestman Greg and my Bridesmaid Cecile travelled all the way from Liverpool -UK to be with us.

Our guests had heaps of fun with our makeshift Photo Booth. Polaroid Camera from Ted’s.

With the tremendous help of family and friends, we dressed the ballroom for 75 guests the day before. It was hard work, but was also lovely to spend that extra time together. It made the wedding last just that little bit longer. Screen, Projector and Audio gear was from Revolver Audio.

Delicious Sassy Catering

Our Jam Favours doubled up as place cards. Jams & Wooden Spoons from Padstow Food Services. A great tip my sister-in-law gave me was to use cardboard shoe boxes. All the jams for Table 1 went into a shoe box labelled Table 1, etc. Made it so much easier to set up on the day. After working on Ch 7’s Wild Boys for 6 months, I was surrounded and then fell in love with the look and texture of Hessian. My dad almost had a heart attack when I mentioned I was using it as a table runner!! But he was pleasantly amazed with the final look.

Our German Toasting Cup

Edible Flowers from the markets added a lovely splash of colour.


I had a friend ‘slice’ a fallen tree off his property so we could use as a rustic cake stand. Our Wedding cake was made by Sassy Catering.

The Hanging tea lights were from Hot Dollar.

We are so grateful to all our family and friends for making our Wedding Day so special. This photo taken at Red Cow Farm pretty much sums up our day!

Photography by Gemma Clarke

Ms Gingham says: It’s such a beautiful wedding with Anthony’s attention to detail and Wendy’s quirky taste shining through. Love the red vespa and the Lucky bottle invites!!

This quote is from Wendy’s brother-in-law at the wedding. Wendy feels it describes here perfectly: “The two quietest members of two very loud families somehow managed to find each other. And whilst we might not always hear them, their personality & creativity has shone through today as they express before us their love for each other”.