Kate & James

It’s always pretty special to showcase the wedding of another fellow Australian blogger- I first read the engagement story of Kate & James when a keen reader sent it to me last year (read the romantic proposal here!) and today I am thrilled to share the wedding of Love You Big’s Kate to her love of nine years, James!

The couple married at Kate’s grandparents’ holiday home in Wentworth Falls in the Blue Mountains. The house has been in Kate’s family for over 50 years. The beautiful backdrop of the Blue Mountains and the sprigs of bright colour provided the perfect setting for what Kate & James described as their “nostalgic garden wedding”.

Images today are by J Roberts Photography who have captured Kate and James’ wedding day in the way they wanted- vintage, band style photos and took on Kate and James’ fun requests like photos in a chestnut tree!

James wore a suit from The Cloakroom. Each of the groomsmen wore a pocket watch.  Kate recalls, “James gave his groomsmen engraved pocket watches on the day. After ordering them, he discovered that his Mum had given his Dad a pocket watch on the day of their wedding (!). So James wore his dad’s watch, and his Dad wore James’.”

Kate says, “The venue was the gardens of my grandparents’ holiday home in Wentworth Falls, about an hour and a half from Sydney. The ceremony took place in the front garden, where we had carefully hung about 100 tissue paper pom poms. The reception was in the back garden, where we put up a huge Turkish-style marquee on the old clay tennis court. I got dressed inside the house with my bridesmaids.

James and I made all the pom poms in the months leading up to the wedding. Luckily, a very loyal group of friends helped to puff them up and hang them – it took about 10 of us to do it properly!”

Kate wore a Lisa Ho gown while her bridesmaids wore floor length floral gowns from Forever New. Kate says “ I saw them, and instantly knew they’d fit into the garden-themed wedding.” The flowers were by Fine Flowers Katoomba.

Of the style of the wedding, Kate describes it as “nostalgic garden party”. “We never really had a theme in mind for the wedding, but knew we wanted muted colours and an old-fashioned feel. So we put ‘nostalgic garden party’ on our invitations, and all the guests obliged accordingly, wearing vests, hats, pretty lacy dresses and gorgeous hairpieces. It really created such atmosphere, and made everyone feel less formal and much more relaxed.”

Kate walked down the aisle with her parents to a very special song. “I chose one of our favourite songs, by a very good mate of ours: “I See Love” by Passenger. It made everyone, including us, cry!”

The rain held off for a magical one and a half hours. “The morning of the wedding was bright, sunny and perfect. We spent it happily greeting guests, hanging pom poms and buzzing around, perfectly delighted with ourselves for “making” such great weather. We were both really relaxed and excited – exactly what I hoped for. By lunch time, huge grey clouds had come over, rain was coming down – my Mum went out and put plastic bags over each pom pom (!!) to stop them getting wet. Rain and hail came down in showers, but managed to avoid the pom poms. The dark clouds loomed closer to the time of the ceremony, threatening to rain, but simultaneously creating the most perfect atmosphere. About ten minutes before I walked out of the house to walk down the aisle, the weather cleared – the garden was wet and smelled fantastic – and the ceremony and photos afterward were all rain-free. By the time we got into the marquee, the heavens opened, and it thundered down heavy rain for much of the night. We couldn’t believe that for one and a half hours, the weather held off for us.”

The newlyweds walked back down the aisle to “All I Want is You” by Barry Louis Polisar.

The wedding cake was made by a local baker in Wentworth Falls and decorated with Granny Smith green apples and was set up on the lolly bar table, Kate says “As for the lolly bar – I spent hours perusing glassware options and deciding on pink, green and white lollies. We bought over 20 kilos of lollies, and had lots leftover, too! Apart from looking really beautiful, the lolly bar gave everyone lots of excuses to mingle, get up and move around, and giggle with sugary lips. I was so excited to see childish fascination with the lollies – it was so much fun.”

Kate and James kept the reception decorations simple. “Instead of having flowers for the tables, we bought glass bowls, filled them with green apples from a nearby orchard and let them float in the water.”

Although there were traditional speeches, the other traditions were thrown out the window! Kate recalls “We didn’t have a first dance, cut the cake or throw the bouquet: there were some traditions that didn’t mean anything to us, so we skipped them!” The couple set up a photo booth with an old photo frame and a mini chalkboard. Kate says “Guests were literally lining up to get their photos done – it was so much fun. It allowed everyone to mingle and move about – on such sugar highs, few people seemed self-conscious, which was awesome.”

Congratulations Kate & James! Thank you for sharing your wedding day on Polka Dot Bride! Thank you also to J Roberts Photography for allowing us to share today’s images!