Melissa and Anthony – The Celebration

How beautiful is today’s wedding? I spent a lot of my childhood in the country with rust brown soil, I can almost smell the atmosphere at Melissa and Anthony’s wedding! Location was particularly important to Melissa and Anthony.

Melissa recounts, “We were looking for somewhere that could cater for both the ceremony and the reception.  The Canberra region has fabulous restaurants and wineries and one of our favourite things to do is discover new places to eat.  We fell in love with the food and rustic atmosphere at Grazing.”

Melissa recounts “We had our wedding bands made by Jason Ree.  Anthony’s wedding band was a Ghost Gum silver and palladium Mokume Gane band and mine was a knife edge platinum band which matched with my engagement ring.”

Melissa says “We had the reception in the Stables at Grazing.  The Stables have beautiful stone walls and high pitched dark timber ceilings.  It also has an attached garden marquee which accommodated our 104 guests.  The weather on the day was so perfect that we were able to open up the garden marquee which has beautiful views out over the garden (where much of Grazing’s organic produce is grown) and across the rural landscape.”

The three tier caramel mud cake was made by Cakes Of Your Dreams and topped with a custom cake topper by My Face Figurines.

Food was a priority to Melissa and Anthony, she says “We enjoyed a divine lunch (food and wine is important to us!) of twice-cooked pork belly or steamed cabbage dumplings filled with quail, pork and pine nuts for entrée.  For main course we had the choice of beef cheeks, slowly cooked or a crisp confit of duck.  For dessert we had our wedding cake which was a caramel mud cake (the cake topper was quite a hit). Grazing sourced fabulous local wines to celebrate with.” The bonbonniere boxes and invitations were created by Melissa using Cristina Re paper.

Melissa says “The bonbonniere boxes were small card boxes topped with miniature gardenia scented wooden flowers.  Inside the boxes were the traditional five sugared almonds (representing health, wealth, happiness, long life and fertility) and a small love note which came from Compendium Stationery.  Anthony and I both wrote on the back of each note.”

The tables were dressed with menu cards and bonbonniere boxes for each guest, vases of double white ranunculus and beautiful Marseille Gardenia Glasshouse Candles which provided the room with a beautiful soft gardenia fragrance.

Melissa, Anthony and their guests enjoyed their lunch reception before heading back to Canberra to celebrate further with guests. “The formalities were overseen by my older and only brother Michael (he was hilarious).  My dad made a speech as did Anthony’s middle brother (David) and Anthony.  All of the speeches were fabulous – my father’s funny, beautiful and from the heart – didn’t leave many dry eyes in the house.  David’s speech was hilarious, this time leaving people crying with laughter.”

Thankyou for sharing your beautiful wedding day with us today Melissa and Anthony! All the best in your married life together!

Photos by Candice Ottaway for O Photography