Brendan and Sian

Brendan asked me to marry him on the 28th of January, 2012, while we were holidaying in Melbourne for the Australia Day long weekend. He took me out to dinner (where he was acting awfully nervous!) and then took me for a stroll through the Carlton Gardens where he proposed to me in front of a dreamy little pond that had a beautiful old dormant stone bridge in the middle of it. It really was like something out of a fairytale.

I had never really thought about what my own wedding would be like, but from the moment I said ‘Yes’ I became rather obsessed with planning our wedding! One thing I did know was that I wanted my wedding to be in a barn… And I knew that finding one on the Gold Coast was going to be quite the hard task! Fast forward a few months later, after much searching and I had found the PERFECT location, in Mudgeeraba on the Gold Coast. We set the date – October 13, 2012!

My dress was by Grace Loves Lace, an amazing local designer. The ‘Colette’ dress that I wore perfectly complimented our vintage/barn style theme. I chose not to have a bridal party, as it would have been so difficult to choose between all of my lovely friends. Instead we had a Flowergirl, my beautiful 9 year old cousin, Khloe.

For the ceremony and reception we had baby’s breath… everywhere! I made lace and hessian jars with lace and we were at the venue until midnight the night before arranging boxes and boxes of beautiful baby’s breath! My bouquet was also baby’s breath, and I loved it.

The goal we had for our wedding was for the ceremony to be beautiful, simple, short and sweet! And our goal for the reception was for it to be fun and like a party, and that it was! Our celebrant was Kate Stewart, who actually is a client of mine (from my Zumba class!). She did a wonderful job and we felt so comfortable with her. My father, Khloe and I arrived to the ceremony in a vintage rolls royce, which was absolutely stunning. On the way I gave Dad a handkercheif which I had made for him and it read;

Dad,

You will always be the First man I ever loved,

Thank you for walking beside me,

Today and always

xx

(needless to say he shed a few tears and proudly showed everyone at the wedding!) I have to say, the best part of my day, was seeing my Husband’s face as I walked down the aisle. I’m not an emotional girl, so the fact that he brought me to tears in front of 120 of our guests was a very big deal!

The Ponman's and the McDonagh's

Our wedding was definitely a DIY wedding. I’m not into the whole white traditional wedding, with the seating plan and all the rules. I knew the only way we were going to create a wedding that we wanted was to make everything ourselves, and that we did! I made all the decorations, and my Father and Husband made all of the props that required the use of tools! My Father even made a Photo Wall (with cut outs to poke your head through and have photos taken). I would describe the feel of our wedding to be warm, rustic, vintage and country inspired.

One of the highlights of our wedding was defnitely our 50 piece candy bar! I wanted everyone’s favourite lolly or chocolate to be there and for it to be like walking into the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory. For months leading up to the wedding I was buying glassware from Wheel & Barrow, and also collecting vintage jars and candy dishes from antique stores and op shops.

 

Our food was carnival inspired so we had sliders (mini burgers), mini hot dogs, mini burritos, french fries, southern fried chicken in mini buckets, pad thai in noodle boxes, churros with chocolate dipping sauce, chocolate brownies, etc. We also had a large table full of our favourite snacks made by my family, who are amazing cooks! We had Scrabble tiles everywhere! With our favourite words, personal jokes and to label the various food selections.

The dancefloor was full all night, the photobooth was occupied every second of the reception with lots of laughter and commotion going on inside. I had 60 props laid out on the table outside the photobooth to make it more fun, and these props were worn in and outside the booth! It was a particularly fun crowd also due to the fact that I run a Zumba business on the Gold Coast and 4 of my instructors were in attendance that night, so of course, they put on a bit of a performance and got the crowd zumba-ing, and begging for more I might add!

Our stunning cake was made by Naomi from Zambetto’s Cakes. Brendan & I love nutella, so we went for layers of chocolate and hazelnut in our wedding cake. It was scrumptious! Naomi has done all of my cakes for the last few years, from each of my birthdays, to my engagement cake. She is a very talented lady and nothing is too hard for her!

To end our wonderful day we had a sparkler send off, which looks amazing in pictures and is lots of fun! We were whisked away in a stretch limo to the Marriott in Surfers Paradise & spent our wedding night in their Honeymoon suite which had a huge corner spa with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the Gold Coast. It was magical.

Something old – lace from my Mum’s wedding dress tied around my bouquet

Something new – my dress, shoes, earrings

Something borrowed – I borrowed Marilyn Monroe’s wedding vows for our ceremony!

Something blue – my garter

Ms Gingham says: Beautiful touches! It looks like this was a perfect day! Congratulations Sian and Brendan.

Sian says: “Even now, 5 months later, I am still obsessed with all things wedding related! I’m happy to say that out of this obsession, I created my new Event Hire Business, Lace & Twine! We’ve only been operating for just over 2 months and we’ve already done 19 events!”