This beautiful wedding at Old Broadwater Farm has so much heart I can hardly contain my happiness. You can honestly feel the love coming through the screen thanks to the gorgeous images from Emma Pointon, and there is nothing better than that. There was so much love poured into each and every detail, and you can see what I mean right here.
Planning our wedding was the most fun. We loved the lead up to our day and were so excited to have our family and friends come together to celebrate with us. We would do it all again in a heartbeat as it truly was the most amazing day of our lives.
Old Broadwater Farm was the first (and only) venue we looked at. I had been doing some online searching for possible venues and came across Old Broadwater Farm (OBF). The farm was located in Busselton which is a town Mihai and I visit frequently. Deciding to go and check it out in person provided us with the perfect excuse for a weekend getaway. At the farm we met with Anna and we were just blown away with how beautiful the venue was. We knew in an instance that this is where we would get married and locked in the date of the 1st November 2014 with Anna. The style that we wanted for our wedding was ‘elegant and pretty’. Selecting Old Broadwater Farm as our venue allowed us to bring this vision to life.
After selecting our location our next priority was organising our photographer. I already had my heart set on Emma Pointon being the photographer at our wedding. I had admired her work for a number of years. Luckily for us, Emma was available and we were so excited that she would be the photographer at our wedding and create everlasting memories for us.
Holding our reception at OBF meant that we could bring in our own caterers and were able to supply our own beverages on the day. We worked with Cape Cellars in providing the beverages. They helped us with total quantities and what we would should serve to our 72 guests. They dropped off and set everything up for us on the day as well as supplying all our ice requirements. We also had the option of returning anything that we had purchased, that was not opened, after our wedding and being refunded for those items – this was fabulous!!! Goanna Gallery were our caterers. Mihai and I love going out for dinner and it was important to us that there would be plenty of gorgeous food available to our guests. Goanna Gallery served the most delicious canapés at our pre-reception and then served the most amazing dinner. Many of our guests had second servings and still rave about the food from the day. Goanna Gallery were so wonderful and professional to work with in the lead up to the wedding and the food was just stunning on the day, we could not have asked for more from them.
I am an avid baker and come from a family of avid bakers. I therefore made the decision to make our wedding cake. We ended up deciding to serve three individual cakes as part of a dessert bar that guests could help themselves to after dinner or choose to take some items home for a ‘midnight’ snack!!! The dessert bar included treats made by myself, Mihai and my mum. We made caramel slice, brandy slice, melting moments, fruitcake and individual lemon cheesecake and cookies and cream cheesecake. The three wedding cakes were chocolate mud, raspberry and hazelnut and a traditional fruitcake that was made by my mum. The fruitcake was the cake that Mihai and I cut and we have kept this cake to celebrate on our 1st anniversary. Mihai and I made sure we stole a little dessert for ourselves for breakfast the following day!!!
Our celebrant was the beautiful Di Moore who we also found online. Di spent the time to really get to know Mihai and I and put together the most beautiful ceremony. It was important to include our family and friends in our ceremony. Both sets of our parents jointly provided their blessing for our marriage and we also had two readings. One was performed by my mum and the other by a very close friend of both of ours. One of our favourite parts of the day was walking back down the aisle as husband and wife and being showered in rose petals by our guests. Mihai and I stole a small moment together before heading back to be congratulated by our family and friends.
We only had a small bridal party. My maid-of-honour was my sister and Mihai’s best man was one of his (our) best mates. Mihai and his best man both wore Hugo Boss on the day. My maid-of-honour wore a beautiful pale pink, Grecian style dress that was purchased and made locally. My sister was engaged shortly after Mihai and I were. This was perfect timing as we were able to go wedding dress shopping together with our mum. We ended up both purchasing our wedding dresses on the same day. I purchased my dress from Raffinato Bridal and absolutely loved it, I never wanted to take it off at the end of the day. It was ivory with beautiful lace and beading details. It had a full skirt and long train. I selected a chapel length, single tier veil that blended in with the skirt of my dress.
Mihai and I were very hands on with the styling of our wedding. We designed and printed all the stationery (invitations, menus and programs), sewed our own bunting, prepared the bomboniere (boxes of M&M’s, because both our names begin with ‘M’), prepared home-made punch for our guests and Mihai also made the sign that was displayed at the entry of our venue. We met with Bree Shine a few times in the lead up to our wedding. Bree set everything up for us on the day (with the exception of the flowers) and realised our vision for everything, we had planned, to perfection.
Sorella Flower Merchants (a sister team) provided all the floral arrangements for the day. I just love flowers and there were no shortage of blooms on the day!!! They decorated the aisle with petals and bunches of flowers in mason jars that hung from the chairs the guests sat in. There were bunches of flowers that lined the two long tables that our guests were seated at for the reception. The made the bouquets my sister and I carried along with a head piece that I wore during the reception. They added the special touch of setting up a flower wrapping table at our reception so at the end of the evening our guests could pick a bunch of flowers from the table, wrap them in brown paper and twine and take the flowers home with them.
A close friend was our MC for the night and my old boss allowed us the use of his car for the day and drove me with my dad and sister to the ceremony. A friend of my brother looked after the music at our ceremony and then played live acoustic guitar at our pre-reception which our guests thoroughly enjoyed. After speeches and cutting the cake our DJ provided the music so we could dance the night away.
Our wedding day was everything we could have hoped for and more. All our suppliers were so simply wonderful to deal with and were so professional at what they do. We enjoyed the whole lead up to the day and would do anything to be able to re-live the day in full if we could. It was the most stunning day filled with so much love and happiness, truly the most perfect start to spending the rest of our lives together!!!
Photography: Photography By Emma Pointon | Styling: Bree Shine | Floral Design: Sorella Flower Merchant | Wedding Dress: Raffinato Bridal | Ceremony Venue: Old Broadwater Farm | Reception Venue: Old Broadwater Farm | Bridesmaids' Dresses: Studio Collections | Catering: Goanna Gallery | Makeup: Brooke Carter | Hair: Raezors Hair Studio | Grooms Attire: Hugo Boss | Celebrant: Diane Moore | Beverages: Cape Cellars | Bride And Groom Wedding Bands: Thomas Meihofer Jewelery Design | Bride's Dress Alterations: Leisa's Dressmaking | Clutch: Ellen Vintage Boutique | Dessert Table: Bride & Mother-of-the-Bride | Gift Registry: Wedding List Co | Guest Signing: Yum Yum Emporium | Hangers: Heavenly Hangers | Invitations & Stationery: Bride | Music: Tom Day | Nails: Tip To Toe - House Of Polish | Wedding Cakes: Bride