Caroline & Adam

We have the most gorgeous wedding for you today, a Yarraville celebration that I can say is well and truly personal to the couple Caroline and Adam. You see, we are lucky enough to have the lovely Caroline as a patterned person here at Polka Dot Bride, which makes it all the more exciting to share her most special of days with you!

The newlyweds explain how they met. “We met when we were both performing in the stage musical “The Full Monty”.  A man who could dance, sing and also woo her with food, Adam quickly established himself as her leading man. We had been together for about three years when Adam proposed in front of close friends at our housewarming party. We arranged the wedding in five months, as Adam’s beloved Dad Graeme had just been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer, and we wanted to be sure he would be able to share our day with us. We were so happy that he could be there, and was able to stay for most of the night, before passing away in January this year.”

Photographs today are by Luke Lornie Photography  who has such a fun spirit to his photographs! His quirky style suited Caroline and Adam’s wedding day perfectly.

The day kicked off with the males of the bridal party getting ready together. Caroline explains, “The ties were sourced by one of the groomsmen, all in different yellow prints. We had custom boutonnieres made for the Groomsmen from Etsy Seller KateSaidYes, which had Billy Buttons and twine.” Each groomsmen received a handmade leather journal with their name embossed on the cover from Crafty Leather.

Caroline chose yellow shoes from Modcloth.

Caroline wore a gown from Moonlight Designs which was shortened and altered to suit her 50’s style look. She added a hairpiece from Gilded Shadows .

Of their bridal party, Caroline tells, “We didn’t have a best man or maid of honour – no ranks! Just the bridesmaids and groomsmen – all as important as the next! I only gave my bridesmaids a colour and style to work with – they were able to choose the dress they felt the most comfortable in, and as a result, they all just looked breathtaking. They were individuals, but the whole look worked cohesively. I had bespoke clutches made for the bridesmaids as their gift, and each had a personalised inscription on the inside. This took the place of bouquets when they walked down the aisle. Made by Etsy Seller Vanijja.”

Caroline remarks, “The bride and bridesmaid’s hair was done by the amazingly talented Kendrie Coonan from Chick Flicks Event Hair– who also happens to be a great friend (and the mother of the flower girl!). She worked with the brief to perfection – 50’s Oscar hair – not wedding!”

Acqua e Vino  was chosen as the venue for the ceremony, the couple explaining, “It was important for us to have our wedding in the inner Western suburbs, as this is the area we live in and love. Acque e Vino is a wine bar in Yarraville, with fantastic staff and just a gorgeous ambiance. Anthony was so fantastic and easy-going – everything went smoothly.”

There were plenty of handmade touches at the ceremony of course, the newlyweds telling, “Caroline hand-sewed the sign for the ceremony, embroidering our names and a little arrow to direct people up the stairs. Caroline hand-sewed our flower girl’s dress – we just couldn’t find something that was special enough, so she made it! Caroline also  sourced over-sized velvet flowers for pops of colour! We borrowed a fab hallway carpet runner from our great friends to use as an aisle.”

For her walk down the aisle, Caroline remembers, “Adam wanted the song to be a surprise, and so I walked to a shortened version of “Sigh no More” by Mumford & Sons.”

Adam made the beautiful ladder backdrop for the ceremony, which had candles and flowers and books on it. “We went to op shops and bought blue hardcover books for our table centrepieces and the ceremony backdrop. Caroline is an avid reader, and Adam owns a gazillion cook books, so it was fitting!”

Meriki Comito married the couple, Caroline remarking, “As we have many close friends that are gay, and have wonderful partners, we added a section to our vows that stated that we hoped the law would be changed soon to allow our friends to marry the loves of their lives, regardless of sexual preference, as their love and respect had inspired us in our relationship. We were lucky enough to be married by a close friend, Meriki Comito from Simply Celebrant, whose wedding Adam MC’d over 10 years ago. So lovely to have had that opportunity.”

“As a special gift to the guests during our signing of the registry (which can sometimes be a lull in the proceedings), my Uncle, ARIA award winning songwriter Phil Buckle, and our great friend, Gareth Millar, performed a fabulous version of “Don’t you Know It’s Magic” live. They were awesome.”

Caroline loved, “Having photos at the Yarraville Mouth Organ Band hall was a blast! Windy, threatening rain, Luke our photographer running into the busy road to get the shots, and people honking horns and waving with congrats!”

Of the flowers, ” Caroline’s Aunt Jen had just completed a floristry course and did my bouquet and sourced all the Billy Buttons for us. She did such a beautiful bouquet with the very vague outline the bride gave her. Just beautiful! ”

Of their photographer, Adam and Caroline tell, “Luke Lornie is not only a ridiculously talented wedding photographer, but also happens to be a great friend. We were torn between having him shoot our day, and having him and his wife Mani as our guests. I wish they could have been in two places at once! They were up for anything we suggested, and Luke dodged peak hour traffic to get our favourite shots! He also demanded that he film the entire thing, and has produced a beautiful video of the day.”

Studio Raw Materials in Footscray was chosen as the reception venue, Adam and Caroline telling, “We found Studio Raw Materials by not looking for wedding venues! We wanted somewhere we could put our own stamp on, and that was industrial, but the biggest pre-requisite – food! The food had to be outstanding. It’s a fantastic space that runs corporate cooking classes, and has a full television set kitchen inside a warehouse. Totally unique, totally us! Rob was amazing from the get-go, he worked with us and we still are told it was the best food anyone has had at a wedding.”

With Caroline’s event planning background at The Creative Type, there was sure to be a lot of DIY at the wedding! The couple tell,  “Being a Wedding Planner/Stylist, it was such a fun process! – Caroline sewed all the chevron table napkins – Adam made our favours, a homemade spice rub that he created, which we then put into small tins with our own labels advising guests to “Season with Love”. We collected bottles for the flowers on all the tables, Caroline made the gift vintage suitcase by lining it with the same fabric as the napkins and putting legs on it ! Caroline made hanging signs out of pages of books for “All You Need is Cake” and “Gifts” – Caroline hand-cut circles and hand-stamped each guests name onto their place card. We strung lights from the roof of the warehouse, and had to use a cherry picker to get up high enough!  Caroline made her own shawl from two smaller shawls she found in a discount store.  Adam made a giant blackboard menu that hung from the wine barrels.”

“Saint Gertrude Letterpress  made our Save-The-Date’s, and they were just fabulous. We wanted something a little different from the norm, and she also designed the labels for the spice rub favors. Such a talented lady!”

There was a nod to family. “We had a whiskey table with a sign that invited quests to “Share a Toast with Nicki, Lindsay, Nancy and Des”, alongside pictures of our much loved grandparents on their wedding days, all of whom could not be with us (but had loved a tipple!)”

“Our guest seating chart was an old window that we found, and put on my art easel. We just loved it. It fit the industrial theme of the wedding.”

They loved “Pulling off a wedding OUR way, on our terms, within our budget, and staying true to our vision, working together for 5 months on such a positive project!” Guests were seated at long tables and served food shared style.

The speeches were a highlight. “The groomsmen prepared a surprise audio-visual speech, kind of a Q&A about Adam from all his mates, which went for 12 minutes (outside of their allotted 5 minutes!), and had been secretly filmed at Adam’s bucks day. HILARIOUS. So many of our photos from the reception are of us laughing and crying so hard.  My bridesmaids making such lovely and beautiful speeches, as we threw out the rule book and had a team speech from them.”

For the first dance, Adam and Caroline tell “Our first dance was to our amazing band “TRIO”, consisting of our good friend Andy Zito and John Flanagan from one of our favourite local bands, John Flanagan & The Begin Agains, playing “Love is a Verb” by John Mayer. However, based on our musical theatre background – we dub ourselves as “singers” not “dancers”, and so we had a surprise Flash-Mob song – that we started during our thank you speech! We had asked a small group of friends to come to rehearse the song, and they stood up and joined in, much to everyone else’s surprise and delight! The song was “Heart & Music” from A New Brain. We had so much fun rehearsing it! It was generously arranged and accompanied by the fab Musical Director Andrew Patterson.”

One of their favourite memories? “Having Adam’s Dad there for most of the day, and Caroline being able to dance with him.”

” Caroline’s Aunt Sally did the dessert table, and WOW, people still talk about the canoli! She went way above our expectations, and sourced the most amazing selection of cakes, biscuits, slices, pastries, you name it! From all over Melbourne!

Congratulations Caroline and Adam! Thank you for sharing your wedding day and stories with us today! Thank you to Luke Lornie Photography   for sharing today’s images!