Brendon and Kirsti
We got married on the 11th of December 2010. The wedding was held at Noon Winery in McLaren Vale, South Australia (My Aunty and Uncle’s winery). It used to be my Grandparent’s winery so my Mum grew up here, my Dad spent time here and my brother and I also used to spend time here as kids. So this place is special to our family and was the perfect venue for our wedding and reception.
We had a fairly small budget for our wedding so there was a fair bit of DIY. For example, we printed all our own stationery – invites, seating lists, drink menus etc. We made petal cones out by dyeing paper with coffee and dried our own rose petals. We also made many other bits and pieces for the reception as you’ll see further down.
Brendon’s Best Man was my Brother Ben. These guys were best friends since year 8, long before anything happened between Brendon and I. Ben’s girlfriend Georgia has become my best friend over the last few years and was my Maid of Honour. We’re all practically family and decided to have a small intimate wedding party with the 4 of us besties! The guy’s suits were from Peter Shearer Menswear and the bridesmaid’s dress was from Night Child with shoes from Witchery.
My mum put our bouquets together from some flowers she ordered at the local florist. I wanted something put together loosely and kind of country looking. She did a fantastic job and even finished them off with some ribbon and twine tied around the stems. My dress was from Bridal on Pulteney.
Our car was a Red VW Beetle that belonged to my Aunty (from the winery) and she was very excited to let us use it. I got ready at their house on the winery property, so we were only driving around the property to get to the ceremony and a hire car was unnecessary. We prettied her up with some ribbon and tulle that we had borrowed from friends who had got married earlier that year. It was perfect!
We had decided to have the ceremony outside at the back of the winery building, mainly because of the beautiful doors! The ceremony was in the afternoon and most of the morning and early afternoon it had been pouring with rain – we had a fairly wet summer. Luckily the sun came out just for the ceremony! It then poured with rain again for about half an hour afterwards but cleared up again for our photoshoot.
Our photographer was James Field. We saw his photography when he shot a friend’s engagement shoot and I fell in love! His style was exactly what I wanted for our wedding photos and he did an amazing job!
The reception was held inside the winery which involved some re-arranging for my Uncle. We are so thankful to him and my aunty for allowing us to have our wedding there. It’s an amazing winery with many rustic bits and pieces already in place which blended perfectly with our own touches that we brought to the place, such as a giant heart and birdcages hanging from the ceiling plus long sections of hessian also across the ceiling.
The reception was our baby in terms of decoration and DIY. We bought paper luggage tags and wrote each person’s name on them for the name tags on seats as well as table numbers.
The table centrepieces were mostly things that mum had at home – candle holders and jars etc, plus we bought a few things here and there and got a whole lot of candles. Each tables’ centrepiece was slightly different. It saved us money and looked great!
I can’t remember where the idea came from but we decided we wanted to buy a wire mannequin and then have people write messages to the bride and groom and hang them on the mannequin. We found this beautiful mannequin at Vintage Decor in St Morris. We made our own ‘luggage tags’ out of patterned paper and I made a sign and we had these and some pens set up inside our reception next to the mannequin.
We had seen a few weddings where people had a photo booth set up by their photographer. However, to keep within our budget we decided to make our own photo booth. We had plenty of props – empty picture frames, a blackboard, and we made our own glasses, moustaches and bows on sticks. We left a digital camera on a table with the props and people took their own ‘photo booth’ pictures! It was fantastic!
We decided on cupcakes for our Wedding cake. An easy to serve option too! They looked and tasted so good with a surprise chocolate filling! They were from Pink Frosting Cup Cakes.
We all had a great time at the reception, good food, excellent wine, heartwarming and hilarious speeches and fun dance times.
And soon the time came to say farewell…
We stayed 2 nights in a lovely little cottage in McLaren Flat and then hopped on a plane to Bali and then Europe for our Honeymoon.
Photography by James Field
Ms Gingham says: This is such a beautiful example of a country wedding. I just love the red VW Beetle!!! Thanks go to Kirsti and Brendon for sharing their day with us!
Kirsti says: “Brendon and I got married on the 11th December 2010 at Noon Winery in McLaren Vale, South Australia. I had so much fun with DIY and planning all the decor for our wedding and I absolutely love our photos, so I wanted to share our day with you all in the hope that we can inspire others.”
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