Happy Friday, SMP Australia! We’ve got the sweetest DIY inspired English garden wedding to share with all of you today. The bride, a crafty girl indeed, worked her magic and created everything from the adorable bird cake topper to the save the dates and invites. Karen Buckle Photography captured all the made with love details and lucky for you, there’s even more to see here in the full gallery!
Click here for the FULL wedding!
From the bride… Taking inspiration from blogs, magazines, Pinterest and Gregory’s and my backgrounds we came up with a English cottage garden style. Many of Gregory’s family and friends made the long journey out from England to share in our day, so we wanted to include them as much as possible. Gregory and I wanted our reception not just to be ‘our’ reception. We were celebrating finally being together, permanently, not just for 12 weeks at a time or less. We wanted all of our friends and family to ‘party’ with us, even if some of us were only meeting for the first time. I had been eyeing off a beautiful venue for the reception for quite a while which I knew our style would suit perfectly. We live by the beach, but wanted something that if we ‘picked it up and put it in England’, it would look as though it was meant to be. Being a DIY, art and crafty person from way back, I knew I wanted to put a personal touch to many of the details. Considering I am not the only DIY-inclined girl in my family, I convinced my mum, sister and grandma to take on a few of the projects. A couple of my favourites were the two little birds that sat on top of our wedding cake that my sister made, the choc-chip and almond bickies my grandma made as part of the favours for our guests, our save-the-dates and wedding invitations I made and the Liberty inspired bunting my mum made (love).
A lot of time was spent hunting for floral fabrics and pretty papers and card that would fit perfectly amongst a colour palette of mustard yellow, beige, browns and a hint of peach. Etsy and ebay almost became a one-stop-shop for little details such as the English floral hankies used to wrap the favours, hilarious props for all the silly photos and little glass milk bottles.
I did want to be careful though not to get anything that I thought I wouldn’t have wanted to get for our home and to keep once our wedding was over. My mum and grandma were wonderful in lending some of their hand-made doilies and my mother’s (very expensive) Irish linen table cloth sat perfectly on the head table. I found the most amazing florist in Roberta from Green & Bloom. Her gorgeous flowers just took my breath away and it made everything look like we were in a Jane Austin novel.
We all shared in so much laughter, love and happiness throughout the entire journey towards our wedding day…the reception just helped finish it off with a spark. Our guests danced the night away to the live Irish band and even the ‘oldies’ gave the photo booth a run. I hadn’t really prepared a big speech or anything, but being a muso, I sang ‘Make you feel my love’ by Bob Dylan for Gregory. We were just so grateful to everyone for playing such a special part in our day. We couldn’t have dreamed for a better occasion!
Wedding Photography: Karen Buckle Photography / Ceremony Venue: Sacred Heart Catholic Church (Clear Island Waters) / Reception Venue: Hyatt Regency Sanctuary Cove / Wedding Cake: Taya of Deliciously Decadent / Cake Topper: DIY by bride’s sister / Flowers: Roberta of Green & Bloom / Band: The Barleyshakes / Dress: Watters / Hair: Charmaine of Salon Indulge / Hairpiece: Myra of Twigs & Honey / Makeup: Steve Mena / Shoes: BHLDN / Bridesmaid Dresses: Custom / Table Decorations, Bonbonnieres, Menu & Place Cards, Bunting, Etc.: DIY by the bride