Elisha and Josh

Elisha and Josh married on a bitterly cold day, not that you can really tell as Elisha’s infectious giggle echos through every picture and she looks as warm as can be (I guess love really is heart warming!) With the sunshine, the daisies and the cheese, could a wedding get any better?

Elisha recalls the story of her and husband Josh. “Josh and I first met after a soccer game in Brisbane which I didn’t overly enjoy but would later find out that my future husband is a very keen and dedicated fan, player and avid watcher of the game! We met on the dance floor and initially I was drawn to him for his amazing curly hair. Neither of us had intended on going out after the game but fate obviously had some other plans for us. So after Josh did some negotiating, he finally got my number and from that day onwards, we began spending more and more time together and as they say the rest is history.  ”

Photos today are by Nikki Bezel  which are so candidly beautiful- Nikki’s captured Elisha’s giggles, the big hugs, the atmosphere, the fun and the laughter. Bespoke Occasions planned and styled the day.

Elisha tells the first story of the day. “The house I was getting ready in was directly behind Vue De Lumieres and for most of the day I sat in the front window wanting so desperately to be at the venue to see what was happening, however Josh and Hannah from Bespoke were in charge of all of the preparations. Each time I would poke my head out, my two nephews would appear and shoo me back inside. This apparently was their job for the day which they did very well!”

The wedding was at Vue De Lumieres . Elisha remembers “We held our ceremony and reception at Vue De Lumieres in the picturesque Maleny. Initially, Josh and I didn’t really know what we wanted our wedding to be but we knew what we didn’t want. We visited Vue De Lumieres and as soon as we saw the wonderful view of the coast line and the mountains, we were both in love and knew we wanted to have our story and our celebration happen in a place with a glorious view both in the day and the night.”

Nikki says, “I was really lucky that the venue we chose was so gorgeous that we didn’t need to have a lot of decorating. The ceremony took place in an open air arbour and we created some simple decorations to give it a contemporary wedding look and feel. I put together some fabric and tissue paper pom poms in a simple colour scheme and had silk draping in the corners. To keep in theme with my love for daisies we lined the aisle with potted daisy plants which created a really simple and elegant look. It’s really amazing that the most humble things can create such gorgeous decorations such as tissue paper, hessian and twine!”

Elisha chose a strapless gown from Roz La Kelin . She wore her grandmother’s pearl earrings and carried a bouquet styled by Bespoke Occasions.

One hiccup that ended up with the bride in a hysterical laughing fit? Elisha recalls, “Typical with weddings, when you try to plan every finite detail something is bound to go a little astray and this is what happened on the day. Because the house I was in was directly behind Vue de Lumieres, I still needed someone to drive me from one house as there was no easy access point and it had rained all day the day before and the ground as very muddy. My brother in laws and my father were meant to work out between them who would drive me from one house to the other and when the crucial moment came though and I was ready to go, there was no chariot waiting. It turned out that everyone thought that someone else was coming back to get me when in fact no one was. I could literally see my own wedding over the fence and was still running a few minutes late. Luckily one of them jumped the fence and we jumped into their car all while laughing hysterically.”

Elisha walked down the aisle to Oasis, she explains, “Josh and I are both a big fans of live music and I managed to find a gorgeous version of Oasis’ Wonderwall to walk down the aisle to. It’s a classic song that we both knew and we loved even more when the tempo was slowed down in this version.”

Of their photographer, Elisha says, “I contacted Nikki early on and I was pretty specific in what I didn’t want from our photographic memories of the wedding day. I wanted someone who wouldn’t just capture wonderful images of us as bride and groom but someone who could tell the story of the day and pick up the expressions and emotions that we wouldn’t get to see, which was exactly what Nikki produced for us and we couldn’t be happier with the end outcome. Nikki was great to have around on the day and I think all of our guests had the pleasure of having a chat with him at some point or another (as everyone kept telling us how wonderful he was). ”

Elisha and Josh made sure their favourite things and what they love was woven throughout the day. First up was a special take on a  guestbook. Elisha recalls “An element that was woven into our wedding was our honeymoon. We had planned on having a smaller wedding and big honeymoon and travel around Europe and Africa a few months following the wedding. Bespoke Occasions introduced the concept of vintage luggage as decorative pieces and created a ‘Travel tips and Love notes’ suitcase for our guests to write down their advice on travel and marriage on shipping tags for us. This was absolutely hilarious to read the next day and I have kept every single one of them.”

The ideas for the style of the day came from the initial thoughts about the day. Elisha recalls, “When we first started planning our wedding, we simply knew that we both wanted to enjoy, and wanted our guests to enjoy good food and great wine and so we used this as our basis. Hannah from Bespoke Occasions worked with us on different styling concepts and made many many suggestions which we were able to choose from very easily. I love daisies and think they are the happiest flower, what little girl didn’t do the ‘he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me’ with a daisy after all. With that in mind, Bespoke Occasions created gorgeous table arrangements with a sea of daisies on every table. And then to complement our good food and wine desire, I found wine cork place card holders with ‘I do’ printed on them which worked well on each of the tables and I’m pretty sure everyone took their cork with them as a keep sake.”

Instead of wedding cake, the couple had wedding cheese! “We both wanted our wedding to be filled with great people, lots of laughter, live music and delicious wine and cheeses and it was exactly what we had in the end and it was perfect. Our cheese table was a BIG hit! It was a little risky instead of doing the traditional cake option and instead providing an assortment of cheeses and a small selection of sweets which had all been sourced by Vue De Lumieres. However it was a huge success and people who weren’t usually wine or cheese lovers soon found themselves indulging!”

Elisha says “Our guests of course made the night all the more special, we had a small and intimate reception with 55 guests which made for plenty of good conversation and we were able to talk with every single person more than once and this was important to us.”

For the first dance, Elisha explains “Our first dance was under a gorgeous clear sky, filled with stars to the beautiful ‘Can’t take my eyes off you’. When Josh and I were first dating he serenaded me with this song as loud as he could and I won’t lie, there was a little liquid courage involved to help him along but it’s always been a song that we both loved from that moment onwards.”

Even though it was a cold day, the wedding planner organised for guests to be warm! Nikki recalls “The day itself was really cold, unusually cold for autumn and it didn’t push above 15 degrees until quite late in the day. The sun finally came out and warmed up the mountain for an hour or two whilst we had our ceremony. When the sun went down the temperature quickly followed (down to around 8 Degrees) and we had several heaters all going at once. Luckily Bespoke Occasions had seen the weather predictions and had provided us with a bundle of beautifully wrapped little blankets for our guests that may have been feeling the cold. It was these little touches that I think made the wedding special, despite the chilly night time air. It did however take a while for people to venture to the outdoors and open air dance floor later on the evening but with a heater strategically placed in the middle most people made their way out for at least a couple of songs and I think the red wine may have also helped with this.”

Elisha ends the tale. “At the end of the night, after everyone had gone home, Josh and I were the last two people at the reception at Vue de Lumieres and so we sat down together at one of the tables, poured a glass of wine and chatted about one another’s day for about half an hour. It was wonderful to be the ones to turn off the lights at our own party!”

Congratulations Elisha and Josh! Thank you for sharing your stories with us! Thank you also to Nikki Bezel  for sharing today’s wedding!