Australia, Australia, Australia. If I could bottle up your style and take it for my own I so, so would. Because it just seems completely natural for everyone who calls your beautiful country home, and this wedding captured by Danni Knight Photography is the perfect example. With an easy elegance that can’t be matched and a lineup of the most adorable flower girls you ever did see – this stylish soiree just proves my point, Australia your weddings sure are pretty. See it all here.

 

From the Bride… Ben and I first met in Primary School. We rekindled our childhood love in 2010. On Ben’s 27th birthday in December 2010, the day after I returned from a trip to Hong Kong, we were walking our dog down the beach when a light plane flew over head towing a banner “Will You Marry Me Alexa?” It was completely unexpected as we had only been together for 3 months, however we were so in love and knew each other were the one.

Our wedding was held at my parent’s property in Somerville, Victoria. They live on 5 acres of stunning gardens, so there was no question where our wedding would be held. I spent many days and hours decorating jars, making cardboard hearts to hang in the ceremony tree and lots of little finishing touches to bring our rustic style wedding together. My dad built our ceremony facade backdrop for our wedding day — it was the main feature of our wedding.

Our daughter Billie and my three nieces were my flower girls. I was inspired by Kate Moss’ wedding and included my favourite little girls instead of having bridesmaids. My nieces loved getting dressed up and being a part of our special day with us.

After designing our wedding invitations I decided to start up my own business (Ink Hearts Paper) designing other rustic style wedding invitations for others.

Wedding Photography: Danni Knight Photography | Wedding Venue: Private Property | Floral Design: Hello Blossoms, Sorrento | Invitations: Ink Hearts Paper | Catering: Moreish Catering | Wedding Dress: Anna Campbell | Groom’s Boutonniere Pin: Three Little Birds | Bride’s Flower Garlands: Wild and Free Jewelry | Flower Girl’s Dresses: Doll Cake | Ceremony Backdrop: Cronin Builders | Entertainment: No One Knows Band

When it comes to throwing an uber-fabulous wedding celebration, this darling NSW duo really knows how it’s done.  I mean, really knows how it’s done.  Because not only did they fly with all of their friends and family to New Zealand for a week of fun-filled festivities (think snowboarding, skiing and nights out on the town), they booked the entire Cardrona Hotel on the night of their wedding, so their guests could have a roaring good time.  Are they awesome or what?!?  Oh, and their wedding captured beautifully by Damien Furey?  Amazing.  See it all in the full gallery.

 

From the Bride… Our guests, including us, all travelled via plane to New Zealand from the Newcastle region in NSW, Australia and stayed in Queenstown. This made for some really great nights out in the week before the wedding!  The week of the wedding was the last week of the ski season and so we all enjoyed skiing and snow boarding the week leading up to it as well as some big nights out! Our wedding took place in New Zealand at The Cardrona Hotel. This was a special place we had visited on previous ski trips to Queenstown and we wanted to share it with out family and friends. We booked out the whole hotel so our guests had free run all night and could kick up their heels knowing they had a bed to fall into only 20 metres away!

We met with the staff at the hotel the day before to finalise all our ceremony and decorative plans that we had previously organised via email from Australia. The owners were great and we only had to give some explanations of our ideas and they ran with them. The decorations we organised had to be portable and not weigh much as we needed to take them on the plane over with us. We had a finger print guest tree from Etsy that was set up for guests to ink their finger and leave a message on the tree. We also had an old Polaroid camera set up where guests could take a pic, write a message and peg them up on some string. Mini chalkboards provided instructions for guests. The photos were really candid and beautiful memories of the night. We explained where we want our cupcake stand ( from Cup and Cake in Queenstown) set up on a wine barrel and had some bunting also purchased from Etsy placed around the hotel with small vintage vases of purple, white and green flowers to go with our bridal bouquets of lavender. All ordered via email from the Green Room Flower company in Wanaka, including hire of vases.

On the morning of our wedding we awoke to see light snow falling outside. This continued on and off throughout the day and made for a real ‘four seasons in one day’ experience! This made things a little complicated as all our guests including us needed to travel through the Crown Range Rd to make it to the ceremony and this road is easily closed due to snow. We got ready in Queenstown and travelled to the hotel.  I got my hair done at Heaven Hair in Queenstown and had my make up done by Renee Little who has done lots of international work and did a great job. Both stylists were selected from careful internet research and organised via email. Once we were done we travelled to the ceremony and luckily the snow wasn’t heavy enough to block the road and we made it safely to the hotel. I got changed into my Wendy Makin dress (customised with cap sleeves from Fashions by Farina in Sydney) and Samantha Wills headpiece at the hotel.

The light snow cleared literally minutes before the ceremony and the sun peaked out from behind the clouds just for the length of the ceremony. The ceremony was beautiful and short, which was great as it was freezing in our dresses. Luckily we had purchased vintage fur stoles from Etsy and put these on at the end of the ceremony when it started snowing again! We were lucky enough to have our incredibly talented friend Damien Furey travel over with us to do our wedding photography and he did an amazing job capturing gorgeous images of us and the beautiful New Zealand landscape. The reception was a beautiful night and we had a great live band LA social club provide entertainment all night long! Guests were able to pick what they wanted to eat from our custom made menus we ordered on Etsy and printed off at a local printers before we went.

Guests enjoyed breakfast provided by the hotel the following morning before travelling back to Queenstown to enjoy the rest of their holidays they organised around our wedding. Our wedding was everything we dreamed it would be and we were so happy to have shared the week leading up to it and the actual day with 30 close friends and family in our favourite location!

Photography: Damien Furey | Ceremony + Reception Venue: The Cardrona Hotel | Floral Design: Green Room Flower Company | Band: LA Social Club | Guest Book + Wine barrel + Bunting: Etsy | Cake: Cup and Cake | Hair: Heaven Hair | Wedding Dress: Wendy Makin | Headpiece: Samantha Wills | Vintage Fur Stoles: Etsy

This Sydney wedding? It’s a stunner from start to finish. It has that easy elegance that never fails to leave me in a blissful state of swooning, and gorgeous details that just seemed to fall perfectly into place. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that it was all beautifully captured by Inlighten Photography giving us an oh-so-gorgeous look into this oh-so-gorgeous day. See it all here.

From the Bride… John and I met while I was studying abroad at Pennsylvania State University. We were engaged on the beach in Dubrovnik while on a family holiday in Croatia. Living and working in New York with our families split between the US and Australia, we decided to return to sunny Sydney for the celebration.

Organizing a wedding from the other side of the globe was no easy task, but I was certain I wanted to have the wedding at Quay, which is familiar to my family as it is where I had my 21st the year before I left for the USA. It has perfect views of Sydney Harbor and was cosy enough for us to get that “intimate dinner” feel that we wanted to share with our close family and friends. Once the date was set the rest fell into place.

Jo Neville at Paper Couture is a close friend of mine and I knew I could rely on her to bring out some beautiful and unique decorations … I said “go nuts Jo, I love everything you do”. Her business partner Glenda made the beautiful chalk art listing the bridal party members.

I had found a picture of a cake on Martha Stewart and loved it so much that I knew I had to find the best cake decorator to do it justice. I couldn’t have been more happy with David Hemsley’s amazing royal icing technique … he’s a true cake genius. A good friend of mine from New York who is an incredibly talented event designer created the beautiful cake topper with silk flowers and ribbon.

Of the 75 guests we had 30 international guests that hung out for a week in Bondi taking in the sights and sounds of Sydney. My bridal party included my sisters, close childhood friends, and my closest friend in New York. John’s groomsmen included his brother, my brother, and his two closest friends who flew out from New York and San Diego.Our parents were glowing with excitement the whole day, and it was such a thrill for my grandmother (who also catered our rehearsal dinner for 40 guests!).

John and I used to sort of roll our eyes when people would use the old cliche “it’s the best day of your life”, but I have to admit it’s true … we really had the best day of our lives.

Photography: Inlighten Photography, Sydney | Wedding Venue: Quay Restaurant, Sydney | Floral Design: Summers Floral, Sydney | Paper Flower Garland: Paper Couture | Stationery: Vera Wang | Calligraphy: Nancy Howell, New York | Custom Handkerchiefs: Rachel Wiles, Benign Objects | Wedding Gown: Alvina Valenta via Kleinfeld Bridal | Groomsmen Tuxedos: Peppers Cremorne | Groom’s Shoes: Salvatore Ferregamo | Bridesmaid’s Dresses: Amsale via Bella Bridesmaid, New York City | Flower Girl’s Dress: J.Crew | Vintage Bentley: Allure Bridal Cars, Sydney | Chalk Artist: Written by Hand | Cake: Hemsley’s Fine Cake Creations

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