Yuichi & Stephen

Colourful weddings are our jam. They ooze happiness and joy, and the world needs more of that! We are always absolutely delighted to share these beautiful weddings with you, and the stories of the gorgeous couples who planned them. Today, we’re taking a virtual trip to the stunning Byron Bay Hinterland for the bright and heartwarming wedding of Yuichi and Stephen. Behind the camera on the day was the talented team at Possum Creek Studios, who captured magical moments under real life rainbows, as well as rainbow styling inside the reception venue. You are in for a treat. Below, Yuichi shares how his and Stephen’s perfect day unfolded.

Our wedding was held at The Orchard Estate in the Byron Bay Hinterland on May 4, 2019.
We chose the weekend as it was a holiday season in Japan so my family and friends could fly over to attend. It also happened to be ‘May the Fourth’ and I love Star Wars! It was meant to be!

The Orchard Estate is such a perfect blank canvas. The barn is black and white, looking over the beautiful hinterland valley. The venue is also a macadamia farm, surrounded by beautiful macadamia trees. Hidden gem indeed! We also stayed at the homestead, which was perfect for the couple to get ready and relax before/after the big day.

All the flowers on the amazing arbour, tables, and boutonnieres were all looked after by Sharron Richards. We had a couple of meetings beforehand and she just created the amazing atmosphere with rainbow colours, which made the whole day brighter in perfection. For boutonnieres, we requested to have cockatoo feathers, and she created beautiful ones with feathers.

We had a friend who wore traditional kilt and played a bagpipe for the ceremony. My niece and nephew were the flower girl and boy, and walked down first with rose petals. My mum gave me away, and Stephen and his aunt followed.

Our ceremony was pushed back by an hour due to a storm. Thanks to our coordinator, catering staff and our lovely celebrant, Kirsty Ella, being flexible and patient, we were given a window of fine weather and able to hold our ceremony outside overlooking the valley. As soon as we started, there was a flock of birds quietly flying over, and it was beautiful.

For our attire, we just wanted to go with simple and classic. So chose black/white, but styled up with Christian Louboutin shoes. I wore a white jacket and Stephen wore black. The black and white look was perfect with the red soles! Getting married in Christian Louboutin shoes was Little Yuichi’s dream and I never thought that day would come!

We finished the ceremony, and we started our cocktail time inside the barn. Then, the storm passed, and we had a beautiful sunset over the valley, and the full rainbow on the other side with black cockatoos flying. A full rainbow was something so special that you could never be able to predict or organise. The photo of us with the rainbow after the rain is probably our favourite!

The theme of our wedding was green, intimate, and relaxed. The main feature was probably the green backdrop Jonny from Big Leaf Boutique created, which was almost bringing tropical rainforest inside the barn. We added bright colours using flowers, and a custom made neon sign created by Neon Republic.

I designed all the printings. As we had guests from Japan, our invitation, menu, place cards etc had to be made in both English and Japanese, I designed and printed using a local printing company. I made sure everything is written in both English and Japanese, so Japanese guests who have limited English would not feel uncomfortable, and everyone could enjoy the day. However, once the party started, I did not need to worry about language barrier. Everyone was happy and having fun. And the friendly catering staff of Fig Tree Restaurant made sure everyone was looked after throughout the day.

I wore Stephen’s late mum’s emerald ring as a small gesture of her being with us on our special day. And we also had her photo and place card at the end of the table close to the grooms’ table.

We love the photos of the decorations inside, double peacock chair with a green backdrop with a neon sign. We love every single photo of our wedding day!

We had a gigantic bottle of Moet Chandon Methuselah for a toast. We had 50 guests, and loved the idea of sharing a glass of champagne with all the guests poured from this one bottle.

Originally we were going to sit among the guests, so we were all are sitting together. But we ended up sitting up the front to maximise the use of amazing backdrop and decorations.

I would like to mention Marina of Marina Machado Cakes, who created our amazing wedding cake. She is such a talented lady, and most importantly, she LOVES what she does, and we fell in love with her passion and talent when we first saw her at a wedding open day. We wanted to see what she could create for us, so we only told her which colours we would like, and to have cockatoo feathers on top. Other than that, we told her to do whatever she liked. And the result was amazing! So glad that we trusted her, and her creation was beyond what we could imagine. And on top of that, her cake was divine! Some of our guests confessed later that they had to sneak some slices home.

I loved that we only had friends who love us as a couple. None of our guests were invited ‘just because’. And that was great. Our guest list was eclectic. Generations, sexualities, races. Everyone was just happy. Everyone knew each other. The day was filled with love.

My advice for future marrieds? Have fun! It can be stressful getting everything ready (and all the bills you keep getting!) but it all will be worth it. We went way over our budget but so glad we had what we had! Don’t have what you don’t want. You just need to please yourself, nobody else. Coz it’s your wedding!

Ms Floral Says: Thank you Yuichi and Stephen for sharing your beautiful and colourful Byron Bay wedding with us! What a gorgeous day, filled with personal touches and loved ones that love you right back!