chic sydney weddingIlana & Benjamin

The wedding of Ilana and Benjamin has graced the pages of Polka Dot Bride for a long time with the gorgeous photo of Ilana and her bridesmaids. While Rose & Ruby are no longer in operation, the mismatched, nude pink gowns has been an image I have seen time and time again as a beautiful example of dressing your bridesmaids differently but cohesively.

So it’s exciting to be able to share the entire wedding with you today – the romantic, vintage glamour feel to it is enchanting and a beautiful way to spend a day. Ilana tells their story. “We first met when we were teenagers. I was the manager of a surf shop and I ask Ben if he wanted a job because I thought he was a bit cute! However no romance bloomed at that time… Fast forward 10 years and we reconnected when I came home from London for holidays. He followed me back to London and then we moved back to Bondi together a year later. And now here we are!”

Photographs today are by SugarLove Weddings who captured the glamour and elegant feeling to Ilana and Benjamin’s day.

Ilana wore a sweetheart strapless gown designed by Corston Couture while her bridesmaids wore gowns in shades of nude pink from Rose & Ruby (now closed).

The Tea Room, Gunners Barracks  was chosen by Ilana and Benjamin as the wedding venue, Ilana telling, “Our ceremony and reception were held at The Tea Room Gunners Barracks in Mosman, Sydney – I love a venue with history and glamour…and amazing food and service! The ceremony was held on the lower lawn with spectacular views of Sydney Harbour, Watsons Bay and Rose Bay. A cocktail reception followed on the terrace and in the stunning dining room of the Tea Room, featuring crystal chandeliers and antique furniture and mirrors! The venue was perfect even before the stylists arrived. And then the party continued on the sandstone Courtyard which was a dance floor under the stars with twinkly fairy lights – it was absolutely beautiful.”

For her walk down the aisle, Ilana tells, “Our very good friend played an acoustic version Heartbeats by José González, it created the perfect mood for the ceremony.”

Ilana says, “Our wedding was everything we had hoped for… stunning Autumn weather, a spectacular setting, cherished friends and family, one hell of a fun party and most importantly a celebration of love.”

For their ceremony, Ilana remembers, “Writing our own ceremony was important, it is the most meaningful and sentimental part of the day so we wanted it to really reflect who we are and included special poems and we wrote own vows – it was very emotional. Having my Grandfather and his wife come all the way from the France to be with us was so amazing. My Grandad and Benjamin’s Gran were our witnesses.”

bridesmaids in mismatched gowns

Ilana worked with each bridesmaid to make the look work, but also help them feel comfortable. She remembers, “I wanted to make sure the girls all felt beautiful in their dresses and so I went shopping with each of them to choose their own dress from a Rose and Ruby collection, they are all mismatched but all work perfectly together. For their gift I had made silver bangles stamped with personalised messages, thanking them for “standing by me on this special day as they have done so many times before”.

The boys received their own thought out present, Ilana recalling, “I meticulously researched every little thing until I found exactly what I had in mind. I wanted the day to not only be all pretty and girlie but to also reflect Benjamin’s personality too, so in keeping with Benjamin and his groomsmen’s love of heavy metal music they were dressed in rock n roll skinny black suits with skull & cross bones cufflinks and socks, they loved it! ”

Of their photographer, Illana remark,s “Choosing our photographer was one of the biggest decisions we had to make while planning our wedding. I’d always admired Bradley’s work and we were so happy that he was available to shoot our day. He captured all of the beautiful details and lots of lovely unexpected ones too. Bradley has quite a presence and I knew would be able to keep the boys under control as they are known for getting a bit carried away when they are all together !”

Ilana and Benjamin made their guest favors, Ilana recalling, “We made little honey pots with honey from my Dad’s bees hives in North Queensland. The lids were covered in gorgeous floral fabric and each pot had a little tag attached with my favourite Winnie the Pooh quotes. We also made flower petal cones out of paper doilies to toss at the end of the ceremony. My mum also designed gorgeous little timetables for the groomsmen and bridesmaid so every knew where they had to be and when. They were a cute touch that we included with their gifts.”

The Style Salon styled the wedding- right down to the cake and wedding bouquets, Ilana tells, “We used The Style Salon for the event styling, flowers and cake and they did such an amazing job. I didn’t want to have to worry about how things would look on the day, enlisting Rouba and her team was the best thing I ever did. It was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined, everywhere you looked were beautiful lace lanterns and candelabras, lace votives and bud vases and crystal vases of the most incredible scented flowers.”

Flashback Photobooths added an extra dose of fun to the wedding, “We organised a retro photobooth and it was a massive hit! It printed a copy for our guest book and a copy for the guest to take home. Everyone was having a great old time, lining up to use it, it was hilarious to see everyone’s legs hanging out the bottom and photos of our parents and grandparents’ photos, I just loved that everyone got involved. During the speeches I mentioned that I hope everyone was having fun in the photobooth and just to let them know we get a CD containing every photo taken and there were A LOT of red faces in the room! Needless to say we had a good laugh looking through all of the photos.”

For their first dance, Ilana remembers “We danced to Sade, By Your Side – we took dance lessons for about 6 weeks but on the night neither of us could remember any of the steps so we did lots of swirling around and Benjamin started doing all these crazy flamboyant moves that I’d never seen before, it was so much fun! Next we danced to Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles with our parents, this was such a happy song and we have such beautiful footage of this. ”

Congratulations on your marriage Ilana and Benjamin! Thank you for sharing your wedding with us! Thank you also to SugarLove Weddings for sharing todays images with us!