Catherine & James

A lovely wedding in the country for you today – a backyard wedding if you will with plenty of country trimmings and a lot of country style. The couple met at Christian Youth leadership conference in Sydney.

James a wedding photographer (at James Day) met Catherine as he gave her directions to the conference when he was late. They connected on Facebook and soon met up at another event that Catherine had organised. One thing led to another and James proposed in the couple’s favourite chocolate shop using a trail of chocolate letters spelling out ‘Marry me?’ to Catherine, where he was on bended knee asking for her hand in marriage.

Photographs are by Matt of Matt & Katie and are a little different to his usual style. Matt says ” I shot this wedding with an almost 100% documentary approach.  Apart from the 6 individual shots of the bridal party members there are no other posed or staged photos.” Josh Lamont shot the wedding day film.


 The theme for the day centred around something incredibly delicious. Catherine recalls, “With James being a wedding photographer, we had some different ideas about what we wanted our wedding to be like.  We wanted fairy floss, slushie machines and copious amounts of chocolate. We’re both chocaholics, and as James proposed in a chocolate shop it was only natural that we’d have plenty of chocolate there! All the chocolate at our wedding was provided by Ninas Chocolates (the shop that James proposed in)”

James & Catherine were married just outside of Armidale in country NSW on James’ mother and step father’s property. Catherine says “It was wonderful to get married outside surrounded by open fields and so relaxing compared to the city.  We had planned to get married in Sydney (where we now live) but when we took a trip to Armidale to visit James’ family we noticed how relaxed we were in this environment and how it would be a perfect place to be married.”

Guests received a sweet treat upon arrival. Catherine explains, “To keep with the chocolate theme, we bought the rolo rolls and wrapped our order of service around them and placed them on everyone’s seats.”

Catherine walked down the aisle to Shawn McDonald “Captivated” sung by Toni Jordan

Bouquets of orange and yellow blooms were created by Rosemerin.


Catherine recalls “Our church minister Andrew Clausen married us. He is as goofy as they come, and even wore a big white wig for some of the day. It was wonderful to declare our love for each other and promise to keep God as the centre of our marriage in front of all our family.”

Toni Jordan kept guests entertained as they enjoyed canapes, a BBQ, sweet treats and drinks after the ceremony.

James and Catherine had an official wedding photographer and a few “unofficials” too.  Of Matt’s work, Catherine says “Matt (of Matt & Katie) was one of the photographers and captured the day in a way that can only be explained as “what it felt like”. There were no posed images of us whatsoever and we just let the day unfold as it happened.”

Catherine says, “All in all we had exactly the type of wedding we wanted, relaxed, lots of fun, and very us. Guests also had a great time. I wouldn’t have wanted my wedding day any other way.”

Catherine’s bridesmaids wore gowns by dressmaker Janice Gorrell. Deidre Tully styled the girls hair. The groom and groomsmen wore Lee jeans, Ben Sherman shirts and Jack London vests. James wore a vest made by Kelly Jackson.

One of the special details of the day was a wisdom tree. Catherine recalls “We had tags hanging down from one of the archways so that the guests could write their marriage advice down for us to look through.”

Catherine recalls, “My Mum did all of the table decorations herself. She cut off bamboo fencing and used that as the table runners, and used native Australian flowers and paper daises to create the centre pieces. We also got the initial of everyone’s first name made out of chocolate. This doubled as place setting and wedding favours.”

The marquee was a last minute addition. Catherine explains, “As our wedding was on a farm we had to bring everything in and organize what we wanted for our wedding. We were originally going to have everyone eating outside but as rain threatened in the week before we got married we opted to get a marquee which worked out wonderfully.”

For the reception, Catherine changed into a second gown from Bowerbird in Cronulla.

Catherine remarks “It was important for James for his father (who passed away) to be remembered. During James’ speech he handed out chocolate cups filled with Port (his dad’s favourite) to some of the guests that he would have loved to have met his dad.”

The couple had a cupcake wedding cake from Moxon’s Bakery and a buffet full of sweet treats for guests.

A photobooth with props was a fun part of the day. Catherine recalls, “Another fun thing that we had at our wedding was a photo booth, where guests chose items from a fancy dress pile. We got hilarious photos and they had lots of fun doing this. We then got some of the photos printed out and hung on the side of the marquee. Guests were then asked to stick their photo from the photo booth into the guest book and write us a message next to it. I loved this as it makes our guest book so much fun to look through and provides a visual and written memory of the feeling of that day.”

Of their first dance, Catherine says “The first dance was to a Stan Walker song, we had Toni Jordan play it live.  The dance floor was the flood lit tennis court. We left the lights off until we started our dance and we shared a simple dance that we learnt from a dance instructor.”

The newlyweds left their wedding celebrations on a tractor. Catherine says “It was lots of fun!”

Congratulations Catherine & James and thank you for sharing your wedding day with us! Thank you also to Matt & Katie for sharing the photographs with us today!