Fran and Will

Fran and Will chose a Red Hill Winery wedding for their special day. With so many guests flying in from The Philippines and England, the couple wanted to show off one of their favourite parts of the country. Sherise Fleming captured the day, which took place south of Melbourne.

Fran tells the story of how she and Will came to be. “William and I met at the end of a pub crawl in London. I had been living in London for one year and had recently moved to Angel , Islington which is where he also lived. 3 yrs later we moved to Melbourne, four years after that we were married!”

The groom’s suit was custom-made in Vietnam and groomsmen wore three-piece suits from Formal Red.

Fran’s lace wedding gown was made by Annette Of Melbourne with her bridesmaids in different pink and black gowns from Review.

The bridal party floral arrangements featured coral pink peonies and were created by Flowers by Dolly.

After finding their dream reception venue, the couple found a church nearby for their wedding ceremony – St Peters in Shoreham. Fran remarking, “Luckily we found a beautiful church called St James on a hill with 180 views of the ocean and rolling hills. There was also a beautiful lawn outside where we had the group photos and formal family photos.”

Fran walked down the aisle with her father to Pachelbel’s Canon In D.

Fran remembers, “One funny story was that my husband Will left his jacket in Melbourne, the only one of his groomsmen that actually lives in Melbourne had to do a 3 hr round trip to get it! He came back with only 30 minutes to spare. Everyone knew but didn’t tell me as they didn’t want me to stress…but during the ceremony I was so nervous that Will decided to tell me to break some of the the tension. It did, I was seen mouthing the word ‘moron’ at this and everyone laughed. After the ceremony my new mother-in-law asked me ‘did you just call my son a moron?'”

Of their photographer, Fran tells, “I met Sherise through a close friend and had seen her work. I knew her style of photography was what I was after. Looking back at the photos she was able to tell the exact story of how I had envisioned the day. She captured all of our natural personalities as well as the formal photos which are important. She also captured the small details of the day such has the hand-made table decorations, my blue shoes and beautiful bouquets.

She made everyone feel really comfortable, especially the groom which I was a little worried about! We had an engagement shoot with her which I found really beneficial before the big day. She gets to know the couple and knows our best angles! There was also a photo booth that added a little twist to the night and the back drop incorporated the colour theme. It was a great way for the guests to interact with each other and a lot of fun. She was a very easy-going person to work with and flexible to what I asked of her.”

Fran and Will held their reception at Lindenderry At Red Hill. Fran remembering, “We first chose Lindenderry, Red Hill as I always knew I wanted to get married at a winery. It was a perfect place to show them how beautiful this part of Victoria was for our International guests. We also wanted a venue that was a hotel so it would be easier for everyone. It was also perfect for the amount of people we wanted to invite.”

Dian Alterado made the wedding cake as well as cake pop favors for each guest.

Fran made the centrepieces herself, explaining, “My maid of honour and I collected jars throughout the year. We spent an afternoon decorating different sized jars with doilies and twine. We then separated into table groups and placed a big vase with pebbles in the middle. These vases also had a large branch sitting in them that I got from Lincraft, to add height and fullness. The day before the wedding I collected the flowers from my florist. She gave me mixture of pink peony’s and some native flowers. We then used these to fill the jars randomly, I was really going for a rustic feel. The colour theme was different shades of pink.”

“Since my husband is English and we had family coming the UK we wanted to add a little English twist to the reception. So we decided to make the table placements and seating chart a Monopoly theme. The bridal table was “Angel Islington” as this is were we had both lived on London and met.”

The Baker Boys kicked off an evening of dancing, with Fran recounting, “We had fabulous Baker Boys as our band. For our first dance we wanted a song that was very upbeat and showed our personality. The song was ‘Community Service Announcement’ by Kylie Auldist. They did a fantastic job of it. We really didn’t prepare our dance, just practiced it once at the end of a long night, we were both quite merry. We just made sure there were a lot of twirls. We must have done a good job as some guests asked if we had had lessons!”

Congratulations on your marriage Fran and Will! Thank you for sharing your wedding day with us! Thank you to Sherise Fleming for sharing today’s images!