This installation was a special one for me as it was for my best friends wedding. Jen is one of my oldest friends so it was an honour to create something special for her wedding day. Their special day was held at Riverlife, Kangaroo point with the most stunning views over the Brisbane river and sunset over the city - it's a magical venue. They also happen to have the perfect roof for an aerial installation which made us very excited! We were thrilled to mix our tassels through the balloons to give them a little bit more depth and texture. 

We also had the pleasure of decorating the cutest little prosecco van from the dream team at Prosecco Piccola. As I had to get back to bridesmaid duties, I left the balloons for Amanda and Rhys to decorate their van and it looked amazing! 

Hayley (Hayley Williamson Photography) and Bec were on hand to capture all the memories. Take a look and Jen and Neils day!

From the Bride

The Proposal:

It's not the most romantic story.. We were at our house and he proposed in our kitchen whilst I was making up dog food before we were heading out to a cheese and rose festival! However, he completely caught me by surprise and I had no idea which was amazing! Our friends were meeting us at the festival and they all knew it was happening and we had a big celebration in the afternoon with everyone! 

The Wedding:

Our wedding was at Riverlife, Kangaroo Point Cliffs in Brisbane. Our ceremony was in the parklands and the reception in the riverfront Marquee. Riverlife was the first and only venue we visited and we loved it straight away and put our deposit down. We didn't want our guests to have to travel far and I wanted the ceremony and reception to be in the same spot so we searched for somewhere in the city.

We chose August because Neil and his family would all be in Scottish kilts and I wanted a long sleeve dress from GLL (however I ended up with the complete opposite in the beautiful Alexandra gown!) I originally wanted sleeves, loose fitted, no veil and no train.. and I ended up with no sleeves, figure-hugging, Gabriella veil and 120cm train! My hera pearl anklets and unreal fur jacket were all from GLL. Visting GLL is the best experience for a bride to be from the champagne on arrival with homemade shortbread to the expertise and amazing customer service from all the stylists!

Paul Voge our celebrant was recommended to us by a friend from work and we met up with him after our engagement party and we loved him right away, he was definitely the celebrant for us. He is so chilled out and a seriously cool dude and that is exactly what we wanted for our day. Each and every time we met with him we left feeling so excited about the day and we were both blown away by the ceremony he put together, all our guests commented that it was the best they had been to and thought Paul was one of our good friends as he knew so much about us. 

Hayley Williamson our photographer was recommended to us by friends. Originally we weren't going to have a photographer as we had a bad experience in Bali doing an engagement. Not having a photographer would have been the biggest mistake!. Hayley was incredible to work with and even convinced us to do the engagement shoot again and she has completely changed our minds about being in front of a camera and the value in having these photos is priceless. We booked a second photographer Bec that works with Hayley a couple of months out and this was the best decision as we got to have photos of both bridal parties getting ready which we wouldn't have been able to see. 

Jessica Briggs is a friend from home and school and I knew I had to have her do my hair as I wanted someone who knew me and my style and who I could be comfortable with telling her what I did and didn't want. Jenna Williams is also a friend and she does my make up regularly for events for the last couple of years and never disappoints! 

I wanted our ceremony to be relaxed as I knew I would be stressed so I wanted everyone to enjoy a few beverages in the parklands throughout the ceremony. Lilly from Bang Bang Balloons recommended Prosecco Piccola a prosecco Van to have set up in the parklands and it was amazing. We have recommended them to 3 couples so far who have reached out to us as they want to book them from seeing our pics. 

My talented best friend Lilly is the owner and operator of Bang Bang Balloons and she wanted to do a balloon installation in the riverfront marquee as a surprise for us and it was stunning! I have no idea how she puts that all together (especially with the strong wind in the morning) but it was the main feature of our reception and everyone commented on how amazing it looked! 

The flowers I planned to DIY from the Rocklea Brisbane flower markets, I wanted natives to go with our wedding theme and my plan was to put the bouquets together myself the night before the wedding and do the table settings to match. Proteas to be the main flower and native greenery to fill the bunches, putting together the bouquets myself was never going to work so we reached out to Wallflower designs in Sandgate who put together the perfect bunches for my budget and the groomsmen buttonholes. I did the flowers for the tables myself from the Rocklea markets the day before the wedding and luckily got the last 15 proteas they had left! 

We always wanted a cheese tower instead of a wedding cake and our original supplier for this fell through 4 weeks out from the wedding, we luckily found Narelle from Tognini's deli who put together our cheese tower last minute with native flowers and Scottish tartan to decorate! We had more than enough for our guests and plenty left over to share amongst friends and family for the rest of the weekend! 

We put together Spotify playlists for dinner music and dancing and decided 2 days out from the wedding that we could foresee so many issues with having no one to actually own this job so we called on a friend from work who agreed to DJ for us last minute and it was the best decision we ever made, the dancefloor was never empty all night and it completely took the stress and worry away! 

Our day was everything we could have asked for and more! All the suppliers we went with completely exceeded expectations and everything came together perfectly, it truly was the best day of our lives.. can we do it all again? 

Favourite memory from the day: 

Reading our vows, we wrote them ourselves and I was so nervous about reading them out as I was worried I was going to cry but when I read them out on the day I have never felt more calm and confident! and dancing at the end of the night with my husband and all our guests, everyone was so happy and having the best time!

Advice for Future Brides: 

Don't stress about the day coming together - if anything goes wrong you are the only person who will know,  don't get too caught up in the minor decorating details as at the end of the day everyone you have invited is there to celebrate the two of you and no one notices or comments on what type of cutlery or placemats you have! AND finally, I'm sure every Bride and Groom hear this multiple times but it's so important to take a moment for just the two of you at some point through the day as it goes so fast you want to make sure you take everything in together. 

The Dream Team