Danielle & Sean

Today’s bride is the manager of a book store and this, amongst other personal touches were woven throughout her country club wedding to groom Sean. It’s always the story behind the reason elements of a wedding are chosen, that makes me fall in love with it, and what could be better than incorporating your love of books, something you work with every day, into your wedding day?

Danielle tells how she and Sean came to be. “Sean and I met on a crazy night out at the Shed in Perth. We were introduced by a mutual friend who never thought we’d end up married, mind you neither did we at that point! We spent the night talking, dancing and having a great time. Sean even had to meet my brother that night as Alex was out as well. The things that stuck in my mind the most were Sean’s impressive dancing and confidant conversational skills. Sean says he’ll never forget my smile and happy attitude that night.”

Photos today are by Saffron Photography who has captured such a romantic, beautiful feeling to today’s wedding.

The stories started with Danielle’s accessories. She tells, “For my something old I wore my late Nan’s horseshoe brooch which was a gift to her from my Grandad. I pinned it to one of my borrowed items which was my late Grandma’s fabric horseshoe that I carried down the aisle over my arm. I also incorporated Grandma’s locket, also borrowed and wrapped around my bouquet along with another colourful brooch of Nans. Grandma and Nan would have loved the wedding obviously and I really wanted to carry some of their spirit with me on the day.”

Danielle’s bridesmaids wore pale pink gowns from Myer and Portmans. Danielle tells, “My two sisters Caitlin and Nicole, and my best friend Renae, spent the morning finishing off the gift bags and hanging lanterns at the venue whilst getting our hair and make up done! They did a great job and were beautiful bridesmaids.” Danielle wore a gown from Tuscany Bridal Leederville.

Rosehill Country Club in Guildford  was chosen as the one location for both the ceremony and reception. Danielle remarks, “ We had both our wedding and reception at Rosehill Country Club in Guildford, specifically the alfresco venue, the Padbury Stables. The ceremony was held in the dedicated garden for the stables that featured a gazebo surrounded by greenery and facing out to a very rural and beautiful view of paddocks and gumtrees in the background lining the river. Having both grown up in the bush to some extent the rural outlook was perfect and I always imagined a garden wedding. We said our vows in front of the gazebo. Rosehill provided a number of covered chairs and a red carpet.

We had Les Trois Amies play at our ceremony and although it is a bit of a blur for me, everyone loved the music. I walked down the aisle to Largo by Handel. I love classical music especially Handel and Largo has always been one of my favourites.”

Of the day itself? Danielle notes, “We had no hiccups at all with the wedding which is amazing. Sean said just before I arrived there was a small shower of rain (I never noticed) and for a second they considered moving us inside but Sean took the risk and the weather was fine. All I can say was that it was a perfect day. The venue looked exactly as I imagined it, my dress felt fantastic, the bridesmaids and flower girls looked gorgeous and the actual wedding ceremony was something I’ll always remember. We chose short and sweet vows that ended with ‘I will grow old with you’ and we both smiled the whole time. I wasn’t nervous at all as soon as Dad and I got out of the car. Sean may have been a bit since despite all my best endeavors I was still 20 minutes late!”

Danielle says, “Our wedding was a beautiful, relaxed vintage-garden style gathering and the most perfect, exciting and right-feeling day of our lives.”

Of their photographer, Danielle says, “Carley from Saffron Photography is a brilliant professional and lovely person and very easy to work with. When we met on the day I knew I’d chosen the right person for the job as we got along straight away. I wanted relaxed, natural and genuine in-the-moment shots and Carley gave us so many brilliant photos to choose from. She captured the gorgeous lace of my dress, the ‘old’, ‘borrowed’ and ‘new’ jewellery, the excited flower girls and peoples’ happiness on the day perfectly. Carley’s relaxed and genuine personality made the bridal party shoot a lot of fun as we traipsed through paddocks and stopped traffic in historic Guildford. With no posing and very little direction Carley gave us some gorgeous natural shots that are very ‘us’. We couldn’t have asked for more.”

Danielle tells, “The reception was held in the alfresco area that opened out to the gardens via cafe blinds. The ceiling was covered in leafy grape vines lit with fairy lights. It is a gorgeous venue. After having our dinner and speeches we later moved to the adjoining indoor area where we had the dance floor and bar. There was ample room for our DJ to set up in one corner, tea and coffee to be served to one side and for a large dance floor to form in the middle of the room. The room itself had a rustic historic feel to it but it was the relaxed inside/outside feel of the alfesco area and the grape vine ceiling that decided me on Rosehill.

The ladies at Rosehill were fantastic. From the first meeting they were a huge help in planning and running our day! Ali, having been through countless weddings, thought of things that hadn’t even occurred to me. They were very organised and efficient and on the actual day coordinated everyone’s movements so I didn’t have to worry at all. The food was also fantastic! They offer tasting nights during the year which we attended to help us choose our courses. There were many options and all we heard was good about the food from our guests. They loved the cheese souffle (personal favourite) and the dessert tasting plate. The service was great.”

“I had big ambitions of doing a lot myself for the wedding or at least making sure it looked the way it did in my head. I envisioned a very free flowing natural look with lots of fresh flowers loosely arranged and touches of vintage with lace. Elements that I did myself were the wishing well, seating plan, menus, place cards and gifts and the decor. Firstly for the wishing well, inspired by my vintage theme and a bit of research I used an old suitcase from Sean’s dad that had gorgeous leather work on the outside and a very groovy print for the lining. I loved it and since we had asked for the guests to donate to our honeymoon instead of gifts I thought it was perfect. I printed the word CARDS onto some old book pages and strung them across the opened suitcase with lace. In the suitcase I also arranged some old sheet music favourites that I picked up at an opp shop. This then sat on a table near the ceremony with a couple of jars of homemade biscuits for people to help themselves to.”

“I used book pages again for the seating chart. You see I work in a book shop so wanted to incorporate them here and there. I found a gorgeous old frame at an op shop that I cleaned up. The frame idea was inspired by my online research as well; I loved the look of it. I painted over the poor old landscape originally in it so I could have a black background. I then wrote in chalk ‘Dani & Sean’s Wedding’ at the top, printed table numbers on book pages and stuck them on. I wrote the guests of each table on the corresponding page and had that at the entrance to the reception.

For a personal touch we thought for the gifts we would use a favourite sweet recipe from each of our mums. From my side we made vanilla biscuits and Sean’s mum’s favourite was rocky road. We packed them in plastic bags, inside little brown paper bags, folded them over at the top and secured them with string attaching the name tag. We then alternated each sweet at each setting. They turned out really well, were fairly simple to make and the guests loved them.”

Danielle remembers, “The reception was great fun with the DJ playing exactly the style of music we wanted. The speeches from our parents were very touching and the Best man kept his decent! The great success of the night was the dancing. The dance floor was full all night and only cleared reluctantly when the bar closed and everyone was told it was home time. We did the garter toss and the bouquet toss. The lucky lady who caught the bouquet is the long time partner of the friend that set Sean and I up in the first place so we thought that was quite poetic.”

For their first dance? “Sean and I chose to dance to Foster The People’s “I Would Do Anything For You”. We both listen to Triple J and wanted something a bit more contemporary and different as our song. It was such a happy relaxed moment after all the build up and anticipation of the day. I just remember feeling extremely happy and we were both laughing. We didn’t worry about choreographing anything special as for one; we weren’t that organised and two; we enjoyed far more the relaxed moment together without the pressure of having to remember steps. It couldn’t have been more perfect.”

“The decor for the wedding was to be vintage inspired and not overly ornate. For the abundant flower arrangements I collected a few jars but my lovely florist Siobhan provided most of them including some lovely mason jars. I had Siobhan make up loose colourful arrangements of seasonal flowers, three per table. They looked fantastic, exactly as I imagined with roses, snow pea flowers, orchids and ranunculas balanced with the soft grey foliage. For the bridal table I used some lovely crocheted doilies done by my mum and grandma across the front (rectangular table) and we had small jars of flowers lined up down the table. To the side of us we arranged another table with doilies, old books, flowers and wedding photos of our parents, grandparents etc

Sean’s mum had passed away a month before the wedding so we had a lovely big photo of her placed first on the signing table at the ceremony and then on the photo table at the reception. I collected frames from a couple of boutique shops and borrowed some from my parents. It was a homage to all their long lasting marriages and in memory of my grandmas and Sean’s mum. Aside from the table settings and photos we didn’t have to add much to the gorgeous venue. The flowers added gorgeous colour and the candle light (Rosehill set out votive candles on the tables) and fairy lights in the vines on the ceiling looked lovely. The only other thing we did ourselves was to hang some white paper lanterns and tissue paper pom poms here and there mainly in the reception venue but also a couple off the ceremony gazebo. DIY meant a lot of late nights leading up to the day and a bit of crazy morning before hand but I was so happy and proud of the result that it was very much worth it. Plus our guests loved it.”

Congratulations on your marriage Danielle and Sean! I wish you every happiness together! Thank you to Saffron Photography for sharing today’s images with us!