Sheree and Danny

I was so lucky a few years ago to explore Broome and I was instantly gobsmacked with the amazing, red soils meeting the beautiful, clear, turquoise waters. I love this story of how Sheree and Danny, who had no plans to tie the knot, suddenly decided this was the perfect place while on holiday and started planning a destination wedding that captured the gorgeous tropical Broome vibes. Luckily they chose Julia Rau Photography to capture it all so we could share it with you today!

The proposal was not without its own unexpected twists and turns. Sheree remembers, “Danny decided to take me out on our boat for a nice sunset cruise where he planned to pop the question (I had no idea). The nice boat sunset cruise resulted in us being pulled over by the water police, having to follow them back to the jetty where we had to put the boat back on the trailer and head home as the boat registration had expired and we didn’t know.
Danny thought, if he was to drive somewhere nice, he still might be able to catch the sunset by the water but luck was not on his side; it started to pour down with rain. But this didn’t stop him, he didn’t give in. He took me back to the house where he lit candles and arranged dinner, not sure what we ended up eating I think it was fish and chips or something romantic like that, and he finally dropped down to one knee popped the question.”

The bride chose an elegant lace gown from White April, noting, “when I was back in NSW with my mum, I decided I I would go wedding dress shopping. I had my mum and younger sister with me on the day and we had been to a few shops but I never had that moment where I loved the dress and ‘it was the one’ feeling. I remember asking my mum what I should feel because sure I had tried on many dresses and thought they were nice but none really hit me.

We arrived at our final dress shop for the day and the lady brought me the dress, I took one look at it and thought “yuck” she must have seen it written on my face and begged me to try it on. I tried it on and had that “OMG THIS IS THE DRESS” feeling. I felt like the dress captured my personality and as cliche, as it sounds it just captured me and my personality.”

Sheree and Danny chose The Mangrove Hotel for their wedding, the bride explaining “Danny and I had been engaged for years and we had two children under three already, so planning a wedding was low on our to-do list until Danny decided to whip me away for a surprise birthday weekend. The last thing on my mind was looking for a wedding venue. We arrived at The Mangrove Hotel and instantly fell in love with the place. We sat down ordered some lunch and were in awe of the tropical feel and scenery, the most beautiful coloured water in Roebuck Bay. As we sat and drank we had talked about how amazing it would be if we got married there. I suppose the venue captured the feeling we wanted our wedding to have, fun and relaxed atmosphere with amazing views.  We went back to our room and ran some numbers and booked it that afternoon.

Sheree notes “The one thing for me that I made sure to include was remembering my Nan who had recently passed away. I wanted to pay my respect to her memory. I had a chair in the front row of the ceremony left blank and had a candle and photo of her placed on the chair.”

The bride was walked down the aisle by her Pop – a complete surprise for her! She explains, “sadly, just before Christmas last year, my Nan was diagnosed with bowel cancer. We flew back to NSW to spend our last Christmas with my Nan. During this trip I handed my Nan and Pop my wedding invitation however never expected them to come as my Nan was very ill. Sadly my Nan passed away in May this year and when I went back to NSW for the funeral I asked my Pop if he would consider coming to my wedding now that my Nan had passed away. However, he had also recently been diagnosed with bone cancer and lymphoma and was also not well.

It wasn’t until two days before my wedding, when my Pop arrived in Broome to surprise me, that I asked him if he would walk me down the aisle. It was such a special moment and one I will cherish for a lifetime. My Pop is my inspiration to get up each morning and soldier on, the true meaning of a man and most importantly helped both my mother and father to raise me into the person I am today.”

Elle Saunders officiated the ceremony, the bride remembering “We wanted it to be formal, to be real and capture the true meaning of love and to let everyone know exactly why they had travelled all that way but we also wanted it to be fun, funny and to also capture our fun-loving nature.
Danny and I decided right from the beginning that we wanted to write our own vows, just to give the ceremony our special touch and to really make the day ours.”

“Right from the very first Skype meeting we connected with Elle and what was just supposed to be the first meeting turned into a few hours of chatting and laughing. We wanted to take the actual getting married part seriously but at the same time we wanted our ceremony to be spontaneous, lots of fun and just a little bit different and Elle really welcomed all of this. She answered all our questions and nothing was too hard or an issue. She listened to the ceremony feel we wanted and she was so much fun.”

The couple worked with Broome Florist to create their floral arranges, using King Proteas as a focal point. Sheree explains, “when I finally found my dress the top half had a leafy print so it started from there. I had searched thousand of images of wedding flowers and kept drawing back to the Australian natives especially the King and Queen Proteas and fell in love. . I was lucky that I found an amazing florist who I sent many photos too and she was able to put together the most amazing flowers.”

The couple chose their photographer just five days before the wedding, the bride explaining, “wow, we honestly couldn’t have asked for a more talented and amazing photographer. We were five days out from our wedding and had to let our original photographer go. As soon as I spoke to Jules, as soon as I heard her voice all my worries and stress left. Her voice was so calming and reassuring.

Her talent is nothing short of amazing, she captured our day perfectly, we laughed lots, partied hard and created a magical day to remember forever and because of Jules we are so lucky and blessed to have the photos that tell our story.  I can’t help but think just how lucky we are to have been able to secure such a wonderful and amazing, talented photographer.”

The day as a whole was more than we could have ever imagined. Everyone who attended our wedding had told us it was the best wedding they had ever been to, for us, that’s the best part. We got to have our dream wedding, in a dream location surrounded by all our family and friends and all we wanted is for everyone to have a great time celebrating with us, and we achieved that.”

The bride created the wedding cake with a friend, explaining, “my friend and I also made my wedding cake, my friend is a pretty good baker and we gave it a shot and made the cake. I purchased the cake ingredients from a cake specialty place in Perth and took them with me.”

Sheree notes, “our main goal throughout the planning of our wedding was to keep it simple but fun! As we were having a destination wedding and understood everyone was travelling long distances to share our day with us we wanted it to be like one big fun party and celebration. We wanted to capture the seriousness of our commitment to each other but we wanted to put our own personal twist and humour into it as well and just make everyone laugh.”

A classic favourite was chosen as the first dance. “We chose the song “Someone Like You” by Van Morrison as we really connected to the song and felt like the song represented us and our love story. As we met each other later in life we had history and had broken hearts so the song really connected to us.”

 Congratulations on your marriage Sheree and Danny! Thank you for sharing the stories of your day with us. Thank you also to Julia Rau Photography for sharing today’s celebration!