Photography by Love Joy Faith
Concept & styling by Alanna Lock for White Room Events

Hello lovelies, how are you? Today I have a sweet (not to mention super easy) tutorial over on Polka Dot Bride. Clickedy-click to see how to make your own glitter word garland for your next event.

I truly believe that one of the keys to enjoying your wedding day and preparation is hiring vendors who you trust to do their job. Here are our behind-the-scenes stars…

Bride’s dress: Cinderella Bridal

Groom’s attire: Suit Co.

Hair & makeup: La Bella Sposa

Headpiece: Borrowed from a friend

Bride’s earrings: Kasia Blue

Bride’s shoes: Zappo’s

Groom and groomsmen’s cufflinks: Various Etsy stores

Groomsmen’s attire: Suit Co.

Bridesmaids’ attire: Various

Fans: Pink Frosting (plus DIY ribbon embellishment)

Flowers: Alyssiums

Rings: Max Langley

Cars: Friend’s vintage Mercedes

Celebrant: Megan Bonython

Ceremony music: Adelaide University Choral Society plus DIY with iPod

Reception music: DIY with iPod

Ceremony venue: The Institute Room at The State Library of South Australia

Reception venue: The Mortlock Chamber at The State Library of South Australia

Day-of coordinator: Mary & Gabrielle Events

Decorations: Various (mostly from Etsy, Ebay, secondhand stores, DIY and Mary & Gabrielle Events)

Cake: Cake Stories (no longer operating)

Catering: Epicure

Dance lessons: Ceroc Modern Jive

Stationery: Akimbo

Photography: Luke Simon Photography (that’s Luke on the right having fun with his assistant in our photo booth)

I think that covers pretty much everything but do ask in the comments if I’ve missed anything.

We simply would not have had such an amazing day without the talent and hard work of our wonderful suppliers. Thank you!

All photography by Luke Simon Photography except stationery and photo booth photos.

The DIY photo booth at our wedding went down a treat with guests! Combined with the chalkboard speech bubbles, we captured so many funny moments.

I love this photo of my girls illustrating all the things a bridemaid should not do, from left to right we have Drunk Bridesmaid, Flirty Bridesmaid and Loud Bridesmaid.

Our resident diva (and fabulous MC for the night) Jessica.

And finally, my bridesmaid-slash-accountant Jaime leaving me a thought to ponder in my role as a wedding professional…

That’s all for the photos but next week I’ll do a roundup of all of our wonderful vendors.

This suitcase-style card box is perfect for destination weddings, travel-loving couples… or any wedding really. Find out how to make it and download the free ‘cards’ tags over on Polka Dot Bride today.

The Man and I fell in love with the Mortlock Chamber of the State Library of South Australia as soon as we saw photos of it. We kept researching venues because we felt we should be looking at all our options, but nothing ever lived up to the Library.

Instead of the traditional long bridal table, we opted for a table in the centre of the room with not only the bridal party but their partners as well. It was wonderful to be surrounded by our loved ones instead of feeling like we were ‘on show’.

I hate chair covers with a passsion (why reception venues can’t just buy some decent-looking chairs in the first place is beyond me). I had my heart set on some beautiful chairs but alas, I couldn’t find what I was looking for locally… which is probably just as well because it would have blown the budget. I did, however, manage to convince the venue to let me borrow some lovely antique timber chairs from another room. There weren’t enough for all 110 guests, but they were great to add a bit of interest nad differentiate the bridal table.

I had so much fun incorporating subtle literary references to suit our library theme. We also reused as many as possible of the ceremony decorations, plus as my bouquet, into the reception decor to get the most for our money.

I was so lucky to have my friends from Mary & Gabrielle Events pull everything together on the day. After planning every last detail and picturing it all in my head for months, I was completely floored when I saw it all come to life.

Instead of numbering the tables, we used scrabble tiles to name them after values that we value in our marriage. Since it’s not evident what they mean in isolation, it meant that guests were curious to walk around the room to find them all.

It was so special to have our Maid of Honour, Best Man, Ryan’s mum and my dad do some very memorable speeches. I’m not a huge fan of public speaking, but I knew that I wanted to express my own sentiments and thanks. We were also lucky to have a brilliant MC in our friend Jess, whose bubbliness and organisation made everything flow smoothly.

I forgot to include in my recount of the disaster-prone leadup to the wedding that I had managed to seriously sprain a muscle around my ribs, leaving me unable even sleep without pain let alone do some of the more involved dance moves in our first dance routine. It was touch-and-go whether we’d be able to do the fancy lift, but happily it healed up just in time.

Next week I’ll show some of the hilarious shots we captured in our photo booth.

Photography by Luke Simon Photography

Today’s Rethink & Reuse is somewhat selfish. You see, I have a type drawer that I bought to display some family photos at our wedding. I absolutely love it, but apart from a brief stint as an advent calendar two Christmases ago, I’m actually at a bit of a loss as to what to do with it now.

Here are what some clever folks are repurposing theirs for:

Jewellery rack | Tonya Staab

Shadow box | Apartment Therapy

Shadow box | Design*Sponge

Craft supply storage | 26 Letters

Memento coffee table | Zween

These are all great ideas, but I already have jewellery storage and a coffee table, prefer my craft supplies to be kept out of sight and I don’t really have many tiny mementos for a memory box. I would LOVE to hear your suggestions of what I could do with my cool – but currently useless – type drawer.

A new year, a new batch of wedding crafts over on Polka Dot Made! First cab off the rank is this free printable sign for your vintage-style photo booth.

Grab it now!

After the ceremony, it was time for the official bridal party photos. We began in the stunning Circulating Library, which was the original library before the Mortlock Wing (where we had our reception) was later added. I would have actually loved to have our ceremony there but alas the room is way too small. It sure made for some atmospheric photos though.

And now in the larger but similarly beautiful Mortlock Chamber:

Our photographer Luke is such a dude. He was so friendly and funny that having our photos taken felt like hanging out with an old friend, which made us so relaxed he could capture some lovely genuine expressions.

One of my fave shots from the wedding – very formal, yes, but that staircase looks like it’s simply made for bridal party photos!

I just realised I haven’t introduced you to our wingmen and -women. From the left on the stairs is my dear school friend Jaime, my friend since the age of three Jo and my beautiful maid of honour Cherie,  then on our other side is Ryan’s brother and best man Dan, best mate Sam and my brother Liam. They were all brilliant and so helpful in the leadup to the day and were so fun to spend our wedding day with.

And finally, my favourite (and might I add, award-winning!) photo from our wedding.

Photography by Luke Simon Photography

I left you last week with the girls and the lads all ready for the big day (go here if you missed it).

Sweet ride, huh?

We were actually never planning to have ‘proper’ wedding cars. Sure they look nice in photos but we figured none of the guests would see them so we’d prefer to spend the money on something more important to us. Then our friend Dave showed us a photo of the latest vintage car in his collection. Um, yes please sir.

I know it’s traditional for the bride to have the white car but what can I say? I’m a colour-loving girl and wanted to have the funky blue car for myself!

Sneaky photographer getting a shot from inside through the blinds. Thankfully he didn’t capture the moment when my bridesmaids realised I had indented stripes in my back from the stitching on the vinyl car seats and had to vigorously rub my back to get them out.

My friends at Mary & Gabrielle Events kindly set up the room for me. The ceremony was such a whirl I felt like I didn’t really have the opportunity to soak in all the details I’d worked so hard on, but looking back at photos it turned out exactly as I had imagined.

Our whole wedding was at the beautiful State Library of South Australia, with the ceremony being in the older wing, the Institute Building. Built in the 1830s it’s one of the oldest buildings in Adelaide.

During the leadup to our wedding I kept expecting to start getting nervous. Initially I thought maybe the nerves would kick in with a week to go. Nope. Maybe the day before? No, too concerned about being sick. That morning? No. How about when I’m dressed and the photographer has arrived? Still no. Surely when I arrive at the ceremony I will be nervous?

It was the biggest day of my life and I dislike being the centre of attention and yet I never had any nerves whatsoever. It sounds cliche but I was just so giddy with pure happiness and excitement. Hence why I have I have the most ridiculously cheesy grin on my face in half the photos (way to be an elegant bride, Alicia).

I won’t go into too much detail as I’ll be doing a whole post on our vendors at the end of this series, but I have to mention how fantastic our celebrant Megan was. We didn’t like the idea of asking the father of the bride’s permission and giving away, so here she is asking for the blessing and support of all four parents. Her words, the readings done by a couple of friends and of course our own vows were so special.

Loving that beautiful golden light, don’t the girls look positively glowing?

What’s that? Oh, it’s only a flipping choir at our wedding.

We saw them perform a few months before our engagement and they were so rad we decided we had to have them at our ceremony. It wasn’t in our budget but we nixed the idea of having favours altogether and put the money towards this as our surprise to the guests. I only wish I could have been in the room to hear the first couple of songs they sang before my arrival!

Cue another goofy grin from me.

Hooray!

Come back next week to see the bridal party shots (there’s even an award-winning photo in there!)

Photography by Luke Simon Photography

This post series has been a loooong time coming. The Man and I were married in September 2010 but I couldn’t show you any photos until they were published in Real Weddings in October 2011. Late last year I already had a pretty full blog calendar and to be honest I guess I was also a bit daunted at the task of editing down to my favourites and capturing the day with words.

I know I’ve been banging on about our wedding for the entirety of this blog while not showing you any photos so thanks for your patience and I hope you enjoy this series!

I definitely didn’t have the ideal leadup to the wedding. I woke up the day before feeling absolutely rotten with the sinus infection from hell and couldn’t get out of bed. No, it wasn’t nerves or exhaustion from doing last-minute wedding jobs or crash dieting or anything like that – in fact, I purposely finished up work a week earlier than planned and sorted out virtually all of my wedding projects ahead of time specifically to avoid a situation like this.

I postponed plans with my bridesmaids so The Man could drag my sorry arse out of bed and to the doctor, who prescribed antibiotics but said they wouldn’t start working for several days – wah! I drugged myself up and perked up enough to have a lovely afternoon at a day spa with my girls.

Oh but did I mention a couple of days prior I was trimming our wedding programs and sliced off the top of my thumb and the carefully grown nail? (It’s true when I say I put in my blood, sweat and tears into this wedding!). I had this gross scab and half a nail (on my ring hand, naturally) and required an emergency reconstructive manicure. This polite girl had rung several beauty salons who were booked out, so my normally very mild-mannered Maid of Honour ripped the phone from my hand and said, ‘Right, this is how we’re going to do this now’. She totally pulled out the ‘Listen, I’ve got a bride here who needs your help and don’t mess with a bride’ card. Hilarious.

So then on the morning of the wedding day I woke up not being able to speak. For reals.

It was at this point when I stopped worrying about something going not quite to plan with the cake or the weather or the cars or whatever. Being able to say my vows was the only thing that mattered.

My girls came to the rescue again with lots of lemon honey tea and words of encouragement and thankfully by the time of our ceremony my voice had returned. I still had to drug myself up to the eyeballs for the pain though.

Anyway, enough of this bad news! Let’s get stuck into the photos, starting with a scary close-up.

I knew from the outset that I wasn’t a traditional veil kind of girl. I had been searching high and low for the perfect birdcage veil when my friend Mary said I could borrow hers. It was PERFECT! She only wore it to her reception so we weren’t worried about looking too similar for the mutual friends attending both weddings.

My mum is going to kill me for posting a photo of her on the internet but I couldn’t not include a photo of my parents now could I?

Me and my gorgeous ‘maids. I love the look of mismatching bridesmaids, so I pretty much just said I wanted purple and full-length and it was up to them to decide a style that they liked. I hadn’t even seen two of the dresses until the day but I couldn’t have been happier with how it worked out. I still wanted them to tie the look together though, so I gave them each a headband.

Meanwhile, the boys were getting ready at a hotel near the venue.

My spunky groom.

Next week I’ll share the ceremony photos.

Photography by Luke Simon Photography