Paula and Dan

Dan proposed 20 months after we started dating and the day before his 29^th birthday. His original plan hit a ‘natural disaster’ kind of bump and instead we had a quiet engagement followed by a dinner with our families. Our theme for the wedding morphed from all white into white and bright after the shoes I fell in love with only came in cherry red or grey. I decided to go with the red and the other colours just seemed to fall in place.

My wedding dress happened by chance and was actually picked by my mum-in-law. Julie saw the dress (Trono by Manuel Mota from Pronovias) in the bridal shop window and said to me ‘I know it’s everything you said you didn’t want. But I think it would look great on you.’ I tried it on and I cried and so did Julie. The dress was picked! I fell in love with stationery from Tear Drop Weddings – a Canadian based company. They make the characters look like you! I loved that this was the first hint of our wedding day that our guests got. It was unique and fun and we had so many brilliant comments about them!

We got married at Anderson Gardens along side their Lotus Pond. It was a beautiful setting, with the whole wedding fitting under the shade of a large tree. I walked down the aisle to ‘It feels like home’ by Chantal Kreviazuk sung live by Elle Graham. I thought it was funny the way everything seemed to fit – as my shoes had become known as ‘there’s no place like home’ shoes. It was really like Dorothy’s wedding over the rainbow! A special moment for me was having both my parents give me away. I thought it was just me trying to hold back the tears when Dan met us at the end of the aisle but as I went to kiss mum on the cheek her eyes were tearing up. I said to her ‘Don’t start or you’ll make me cry!” Only to hear my Dad’s voice behind me say ‘Not before me.’ I looked to him as Daniel took my hand and his face was red and his eyes wet but he was beaming his big smile.

During the ceremony Dan accidently said ‘with this wing I thee wed’ It was perfect! We burst into giggles and the celebrant had him say it again!

My cocktail hat and bridesmaid fascinators were made by local Townsville Designer Katherine Falco Designs. She’s fantastic and so talented (and patient)!

Our photos were taken by the magnificent Andrew Rankin. I can’t thank him enough for being so supportive and positive with all my ‘big’ ideas. To quote Andrew when discussing transporting our giant balloons to our photo locations he simply said, ‘You’ve seen that movie Up haven’t you?” I knew we had a winner then.

The reception was held at our local RSL, which holds a personal connection for my family, as well as Daniel. Instead of traditional bonbonnieres we decided to place moustaches on sticks (made by us) on each table. We were hoping this would act as a possible ice-breaker for guests who hadn’t met and another incentive for guests to have some fun in the photo booth. Our photo booth tied into our photo guest book with guests asked to sign a page, to which we would later add their photo. It’s one funny and precious momento!

Our wedding cake was made by the talented Leoni from Happy Cakes. It was a 3 tiered white cake with multicoloured ‘sugar confetti’ tumbling off it. It had 3 flavours in each tier; of peppermint, white raspberry-choc, and chocolate – so that when you cut a slice it was white, pink and brown and oh so yum!

Another personal touch at our reception was the fact that Dan’s dad’s band played for the evening! It was especially lovely to have them play ‘Say hey I love you’ for when the bridal party walked in – only to stop and change to ‘I’m yours’ by Jason Mraz for our surprise first dance before we’d even sat down! I made a surprise dress change after the formalities; into a 1950’s swing dress. My god-father and I had learned to rock and roll when I was 21 and as I still love it, we teed up a little dance to ‘CandyMan’ by Christina Aguilera. We had a blast and from what we hear, so did all of our guests.

Ms Polka Dot says: Such a fun and happy tropical wedding for you today, with bright pops of colour, lots of humour and lots of personal touches! Don’t the photographs just ooze fun and happiness? Congratulations Paula and Dan – and thank you for sharing your wedding day with us.

Paula says: I’m 24 and live in Townsville, North Queensland with my new hubby Daniel, and our dog Zeus. My favourite cocktail is a Starburst! It’s like a liquid starburst – yum o !