Wedding: that's a wrap!

So this is really the final wedding post. Wow! It's been such an incredible journey and I am so grateful for all your kind words and support. This chapter in my life has now come to a close and while it feels like I am farewelling a good friend, I am very excited about the future as a married lady. But planning my own day has also uncovered a passion for weddings, and I am currently working on a project in this realm that I'll be releasing more news about in the future. I am super excited! In the mean time, I'll leave you with one of my favourite photos from the day, a little advice and thoughts on the best parts of the day.

Three best investments:

1. Having Christine Lim as a photographer. This lady is just so darn talented and I have been recommending her to all my friends, engaged or not. I am so happy with the photos her and Ruby came out with and they were an absolute joy to have on the day. I hope this isn't the last time I have the pleasure of working with these pros!
2. Calling Jess Butcher in at the last minute to style the day. I can't sing Jess' praises enough! Having her on board became the biggest stress reliever, as I knew my ideas were in trusted hands and she would do a fabulous job making them come to life. She set things up so much better than I ever could have, and I am really looking forward to see what this girl does next - she is definitely going places.
3. Booking Fothergills for the night before and of the wedding. This was just the perfect place to get ready and wake up to two days in a row. We had the whole top floor of one of the two terrace houses which made it easy to move around and let everyone get ready in their own space. I loved sleeping in the four-poster bed and the owners were so accommodating, even when I got locked in the bathroom the morning after the wedding and needed rescuing!

Three best savings:

1. My dress. It was my dream gown, no question about it, and one of those things that was just meant to be. I am glad I trusted my instincts regarding my original dress and kept looking, and found this incredible piece on Etsy for just $250. Never did I think my gown would come at so small a price!
2. Going for a collection of cakes from Sherbet. I spoke in good detail about this in another post, but the value we got for our money by eschewing a decorated cake and going for our favourite whole cakes from Sherbet was fantastic. They tasted amazing and had us doling out leftover cake for a week after the wedding.
3. Various DIY projects. I got inspiration for many of these thanks to Pinterest and saved so much by having a go myself. As previously mentioned, it was also such a nice process to know guests would go home with favours I had created and seeing the product of all my hard work displayed on the day.

Three best moments:

1. Seeing Marc up on the stage and the pure joy radiating from his face. Feeling that intense energy and love between us as we made our vows. And all my nerves melting away with that one magical kiss.
2. Taking that moment to tour the empty reception inside rooms just after arriving when all our guests were still out in the courtyard. It was the first time we had been alone all day and gave us the chance to say a huge "Wow!" while smiling giddily. Also admiring Jess Butcher's handiwork and all those little details that had taken me months to imagine, and later bring to life.
3. Spending the night before and morning of at Fothergills with my little sister and maid of honour. I remember it being a really relaxing time in those hours leading up to the day kicking off, and it was a really nice moment to spend with my best gal friend.

Other notable mentions go to the flower arranging session Robyn and I had the day before, catching a taxi to the ceremony, walking around while taking the portraits and having so many passers-by and motorists we didn't know congratulating us, entering the reception to crazy applause from our nearest and dearest  sharing lots of smiles and love with Marc during the day, walking hand-in-hand home after the reception and chatting about such a great day.

Three things that I might have done differently:

1. I wish I wore a floor-length veil! For some reason I thought it would be too over the top but in hindsight, when I came to choose my second dress I probably should have thought about having a more lush veil with a blusher to match the vintage effect. But my veil only cost $5 so I can't complain too much!
2. Not that we could fit this into our budget but if we could, I would have loved to have had a videographer to get a film of the day. Things got so foggy a few days after the wedding and it all just felt like a bit of a blur so it would have been nice to see a professional video of the events. But that said, I have family-recorded versions of all the key bits of the day to remember it all by and Christine's photos have me a real memory-boost when I received them!
3. I would have worn my main gown all night. I really didn't get to wear it for that long in the end and would have loved to soak it in a bit more. But this is unrealistic because I needed to dance and the big tulle skirt would have made that impossible. A girl can dream though!

Yup, that's the end. I tried to be as thorough as possible, but if there's anything else you're keen to let me know just ask. Thanks to you all again for reading and sharing this joyous time with me. Goodbye wedding, you were ace!

photographer: Christine Lim 

Wedding: DIYs

With the number of DIYs I worked on for the wedding, I really wished I had spent more time documenting the process. I was always very excited to get each project done and somewhere along the line I forgot to bring my camera along at those crucial moments. But anyway, here's a brief rundown of some of the projects I took on, and how I did them:

• Glitter word banners: I made five of these banners for various stations around the reception and on the stage at the ceremony. I am not going to lie - they took ages! I cut the letters out of card with a stanley knife, slathered them with glue and then shook glitter all over them. That was a lot of glitter! Then I attached the letters to brown twine using a hot glue gun. Super simple to replicate, just put a good TV show on in the background and be prepared to get cutting for hours.
• Animal cake toppers: We had a different vintage animal placed on each of our cakes to advertise their flavours. I spray painted the animals gold, ensuring there were no gaps, and then drilled a fine hole in each of their backs. Then I wound wire around a pencil to make a circle and bent the rest of the wire at a right angle, before sticking it into the animal's back with some super glue. Finally, I stamped the flavour on a shipping tag and inserted it into the circle of wire.
• Hair piece: I saved so much money making this myself. I found a pale blush velvet flower on an Etsy millinery store, and simply hot glued an alligator hair clip onto the back. With fine fishing line, I sewed some of the leaves down to the rest of the flower to ensure they couldn't be bent the wrong way. This project required a lot of trial and error as I was initially using a comb to secure the flower and it kept falling out. Hot glue turned out to be my surprising saviour.
• Here Comes the Bride banner: This was another painstaking project. I bought a wooden stick from Bunnings and had it cut down to size. Then I cut the burlap to my desired shape and sewed the top down with a hole big enough for the stick to go through. Next, I cut the word stencil out of card using a stanley knife and pinned it to the burlap. Using two coats of paint, I stippled paint through the stencil to make out the words. Then I stitched around the edge of the banner to help prevent it from fraying.
• Gold flamingoes and animals: The flamingoes were bought at a local gift shop and the animals were a bulk vintage eBay find. They both got a spraying of gold paint, with the flamingoes going on to be aisle markers and the animals acting as favours.
• Garlands: I made two different kinds of these. The first kind were vintage floral sheets that I cut into wide strips, sewed together in one long line and then cut up 4/5 of the way to create tassels. The second was made using lace curtains in all different patterns, cutting into small strips and then knotting onto a long piece of rope. Very simple but they looked pretty all hung up together.
• Coat hangers: I lierally did this the day before the wedding as a little something to give to my bridesmaids (and one for me too!). Using wooden coat hangers and silver glitter letters from Spotlight, I stuck letters spelling out each girl's name onto the top of the hanger. Then I tied a little bow around the handle using lace ribbon I had lying around. Voila!
• Veil: I can't take too much credit for this one as my mother made it, but I oversaw the process! We bought fine stretch tulle and read a few vague internet tutorials to get a rough idea how to do it. The shape was cut, and then bunched at the top and sewn onto a comb. If you're wanting to make your own veil too I'd suggest checking out some proper tutorials to get a feel for how to do it. My veil ended up only costing me $5, talk about a bargain.

There were a few more things that I have already posted photos of too, such as the chalkboard drinks menu, chalkboard speech bubbles and photo booth props. Making all these things myself saved me so much money and I am really happy with how they turned out. And there were so many more parts of the wedding that were semi-DIY, like the stationary, or a case of me sourcing all the parts that went into them, like the lolly buffet, cake table or guest book. All the little signs and tags were hand stamped or made by me, and the vintage props were lovingly collected over a few months.

I got so much satisfaction making so many things for the day (and Marc, my dad and my mum helped with many of them too!). Everything looked so 'Jessie and Marc', and it was a great feeling to enter the reception and see how Jess Butcher had so wonderfully styled everything. I think it's really important for couples to put their own individual stamp on their days, and I think we got the message of us across best with the DIYs we incorporated.

photographer: Christine Lim / second photographer: Ruby Yeo

Wedding: the flowers

This brings me to one of my favourite details of the wedding: the flowers. Unfortunately the dreams of what I wanted them to look like did not match up with my budget, so I decided to forgo the idea of a professional florist and attempt to DIY the flowers instead. But then I realised the answer was staring at me right in the face. My dear friend Robyn, who I used to put on vintage sales with and now resides in Melbourne, actually used to work at various florists for years and has a wealth of experience in the field. She agreed to help turn my dreams to a reality, and I couldn't have been more excited to have this lady not only attend the big day but create such an integral part.

With only a Pinterest board of inspiration to guide me and no firm idea of what I actually wanted, we set out the morning before the wedding to a flower wholesaler where Robyn used to work to purchase the blooms. She had called ahead to get some bunches put aside already, and we picked out plenty more as we walked through the various cool rooms. Rob also managed to score piles of peonies for a crazy price thanks to her contacts, so we walked out with armfuls upon armfuls of the stunning flower in shades of white and pink. Here are some of the other varieties we picked out:

• Carnations
• Billy buttons
• Berzillia
• Alsotroemerias
• Champagne roses
• Spray roses
• Crenulata gum
• Ibis and disbud chrysanthemums for the table arrangements
• And many more I can't remember the names of...

All in all we spent $500 on a car-full of flowers and supplies like wire etc. We got back to my parents' house and set up a makeshift work station on the living room floor, removing leaves from stems and separating blooms into piles. And that's where the real magic began. In less than 10 minutes, Robyn had already whipped up a bouquet more beautiful than any I had ever seen. My only prerequisites were that it would be a bit wild-looking, almost as if it has been randomly picked from a garden, and that it would be big. I don't know how she did it, but Robyn constructed my dream bouquet without me even knowing exactly what it is that I wanted. It was far more stunning in real life and massive, my arm got so tired from holding that weight for a chunk of the day. Rob wrapped a vintage blush velvet ribbon (bought earlier from etsy) around the stems and hey presto! It was done. She was similarly speedy with the bridesmaids bouquets, ensuring each one held pretty much the exact same flowers but they all had a slight edge of difference from one another.

Meanwhile, I just sat back in astonishment. I can honestly say that I barely helped at all, save for cleaning up the mess as we went. Boutonnieres were next and Robyn also did a great job of keeping them all similar but still unique, while I helped with wrapping the little stems in brown twine. I originally wanted the bouts to be flowerless but Marc's boutonniere ended up featuring two small peony buds which I think were just so sweet and definitely the right choice. I had been collecting tens of jars ever since we started planning the wedding, so once all the formal flowers were done Robyn got busy on separating the bounty of leftover flowers into mini arrangements. Then there was also the peony bunches that spilled out of the vintage suitcases at the ceremony, and the arrangements for the signing table. Jars were placed in bread crates ready for the reception, and I made some makeshift vases (second photo) out of plastic jugs to bring the bouquets with me to stay at Fothergills.

I know this has become very long-winded so I will pretty much leave it there, but I will say this - Robyn was absolutely amazing and I was so glad to have her on my side. I think she should start her own floristry business! Also, I learnt that attempting to DIY flowers is way easier said than done. When I actually saw all the work that goes into constructing a bouquet I knew I never could have done it any where as good myself. DIYs are great on the whole but not when you are greatly sacrificing quality in the process! So glad I had a pro do this one in the end. Over and out.

photographer: Christine Lim / second photographer: Ruby Yeo

Wedding: the paper goods

When we began planning the wedding, I had it in my mind that I would create all the paper goods myself. But when it actually came down to it, I realised that I just didn't have the patience nor the skills to design and compile 100 invitations and other assorted stationary. So my next port of call was to investigate getting a professional to do it for me. To be honest, I was absolutely shocked at the prices I found. $10 for just one invitation without the additional envelopes, insert cards, directions etc.? That's crazy talk. I appreciate lovely stationary as much as anyone, and spend copious amounts on my own personal stash, but to part with that amount of cash for something that most people would throw away after the event was just way outside my budget. (But if I had the money available I would have splashed out nonetheless, and appreciate all the time and effort that goes into lovely custom invites. It was just out of the question for us.)

I began to explore other options, and I got pretty interested in the concept many etsy sellers have of offering customisable set invites that you print yourself. It works like this - buy the template, send your specifics to the designer to make the invite your own, and then take the pdf to a printer. I ended up saving so much money by doing it this way, and I was really happy with the design itself - it matched our colours/theme perfectly. The great thing was that the seller I used, Yellow Brick Graphics, had a whole suite of different types of stationary in the same design so I could coordinate the invites, programs and thank you notes to match. The designer Mickenzie even created two custom signs to match, one for the ceremony and one for the order of events at the reception, which we placed on an easel.

Now, here's what didn't go so well about this process - the printing side. Knowing next to nothing about printing and paper stock, I contacted a printer and advised I would need some help on choosing a stock. I explained that it was for wedding invitations, I wanted something thick and high quality to give that luxe, wedding-y feel. What I ended up with was not really what I was after. It was still nice, but could have been at least twice as thick. And for people who supposedly print invites all the time, I felt a bit let down that they didn't point me in the right direction. Next time I would definitely go and feel the paper stocks in real life before trusting their opinion. Also, the paper stocks for the invites, programs and thank you cards were all somehow different even though I asked for the exact same thing.

I loved the paper goods we ended up with and managed to save an incredible amount of money, I only tell the downside to serve as a cautionary tale for any brides considering doing this themselves!

photographer: Christine Lim / paper goods: Yellow Brick Graphics 

Wedding: bridal portraits

Most people can only hope to get a few choice photos from their big day at best that are 'frame-able'. You know, the ones you send to everyone and display in your house for all to see. So when I got back the photos from Christine Lim I actually could not believe my eyes. There were just so many shots I loved, and actually found it a somewhat daunting process to cut them down to a more manageable number. That is a good thing though! Christine and Ruby just went so above and beyond what I could have imagined and I am so glad to have these photos that I can look at for the rest of my life.

Between the ceremony and reception we had about an-hour-and-a-half to pose for bridal shots in the nearby streets. We were lucky that Fremantle is just so gosh darn photogenic - there are buildings and walls and lane ways at every corner that just beg to be photographed, and it was actually a pretty simple task to wander about and stop whenever our photographers had a great idea. I really love the mix of candid shots with the more posed photos, it's a nice balance and gave rise to many unexpected treasures.

I am also grateful for the crazy wind on the day (though I didn't feel that way at the time, haha). It was a lovely 20 degrees celsius on the day and though the rain threatened us early on, it stayed away except for a tiny sprinkling in the morning. I am told it's actually good luck for it to rain on your wedding day, so I wasn't complaining. But the wind, oh my. That was a force to contend with. But seeing these photos, how the wind picked up the tulle of my dress and threw it in all directions - I think that's mighty pretty. Thanks, Mother Nature.

photographer: Christine Lim / second photographer: Ruby Yeo