Vanessa and Chris

Vanessa and Chris

I feel like the luckiest girl in the world showing off today’s wedding! A vintage glam wedding taken into the 21st century with an elegant, urban feel to it!

It’s the long awaited wedding of Ms Polka Dot’s Directory member Princess Cherry Pie & author of blog I’ll Be Your Rock If You’ll Be My Doris! I’m so honoured to bring you the wedding of one of the bubbliest, loveliest ladies I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know- Vanessa and Chris!

Vanessa and Chris met in high school and true to form, Vanessa dishes the full story as to how the newlyweds met. “Chris and I met, aged 12 on our first day of high school!  However, given that he was a jock and I was perpetually uncool, our paths didn’t cross until a few years later.  Our first encounter together was in the Year 7 production of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ (Me as Red and Chris as the Big Bad Wolf – I even managed to find a card of Little Red Riding Hood, which I gave to Chris with his wedding present) and then again in Year 10 in “Guys and Dolls”, where I asked Chris to pose for a photo backstage and said “Chris, will you be my guy?”.  After that we became the very best of friends and would fall asleep on the phone to each other most nights (BUT WE WERE ‘JUST FRIENDS’ haha) – after high school we kept bumping into one another before Chris left for the USA for a month long holiday.  Whilst away on holiday I was lucky enough to receive a bunch of flowers on Valentine’s Day from guess who… Four days later, as he was leaving the airport, Chris rang and said that he had to see me…

He arrived at my door and proclaimed that he had something to ask me…”Will you be my girlfriend?”  and 7 years later, we were married.

We’ve often joked that our lives are like an episode of The OC (This makes more sense later…), unlikely high school sweet hearts that were just meant to end up together….”

Photos today are by Kit Haselden.

As a makeup artist, Vanessa did her own makeup as well as that of her bridesmaids “I obviously DIY’d the makeup for myself and the girls.  It was so lovely to have something to do during our morning preparations, otherwise I’m sure I would have been a lot more nervous!  I was thrilled with the makeup – it was definitely my BEST bridal party to date.”

One of Vanessa’s wedding day highlights came from her brother “Hearing my little brother tell me that I looked beautiful (He is a young man of few words, but those were the right ones and completely the right time)”.

Vanessa wore a strapless gown with accessories from Mariana Hardwick, while her bridesmaids were dressed is charcoal blue gowns from OJAY. Style By Nature created bouquets (“with very little input” says Vanessa , of dusty miller with cream and mauve roses  for the bridesmaids and cream roses with dusty miller for Vanessa. Vanessa added a blue butterfly to her bouquet for her “something blue” (which doubled as a nod to her name as Vanessa means butterfly).

The boys were dressed in suits from Formalwear Express and shoes from Zu Shoes. The groomsmen each wore cuff links which reflected their personalities – Chris’ were a a gift from Vanessa. He wore silver Tiffany & Co cufflinks which Vanessa purchased when they were in New York City and she’d decided Chris was 100% “the one”.

Vanessa and Chris chose The Willows as the location for their ceremony and reception. Vanessa says “After having spent the day looking at several venues, The Willows was our last stop.  We were early so decided do just do a drive by to suss things out…IT WAS PERFECT!!!  We both agreed it looked like something out of The Great Gatsby (one of our favourite books from school), and after meeting Fiona our coordinator, and walking through the various spaces within the venue (outdoor, glass atrium, dance floor and lounge) we were sold.  (Thank goodness our original date was booked as that turned out to be the date of Melbourne’s worst storm!!!!  Whereas the 12^th was a picture perfect day!)”.

Vanessa says “Being the nerd that I am, I LOVE Taylor Swift….and all day I had ‘Today was a fairytale’ playing in my head.  Seriously, everything was absolutely PERFECT!  All our service providers were incredible – I would recommend them to EVERYONE, because it was the small details that made a big difference.  Myself and the bridesmaids were early, so we parked for about 20 minutes and our driver whipped out some lollies for us all to enjoy.  The boys got the same treatment, but with beers!”

One of Vanessa’s favourite moments was traveling to the ceremony with her father “Driving in with Dad I was expecting some final words of advice, but we were both a bit too emotional to talk, so we just sat together holding hands, all the way till he gave me away to Chris.”

Vanessa walked down the aisle to Syd Matter’s cover of “Hello Sunshine”. Vanessa says “This is where the OC reference comes in.  I had been planning this entrance well before we were engaged.  Myself and the bridesmaids entered to Syd Matter’s version of ‘Hello Sunshine’ (From the OC – it’s Summer and Seth’s song….Summer was the cool one and Seth was the nerd one and they still made it work……true OC fans will understand) 😉  I had everything timed to the second so that I got to enter to the big crescendo.”

One of the special ceremony touches came at the suggestion of the couple’s celebrant Peter Raymond. Vanessa recounts “On Peter’s suggestion, we decided to have each member of our bridal party introduced throughout the ceremony, how they met Chris and myself and why it was important to have them standing with us on our wedding day.  I cannot tell you how many comments we have had on that small gesture, and it was all thanks to Peter!  He was excellent!”

Check back this afternoon for more of the gorgeous celebration of Vanessa and Chris!

Photos by Kit Haselden.