Jen & Patrick

Oh gorgeous Ballarat you do put on a gorgeous wedding – Jen and Patrick revised their wedding plans after their original venue closed down. They moved the entire celebration to Ballarat and had a beautiful, classic romantic wedding!

Jen tells their story. “The story of how we met was featured in our ceremony and earned a few laughs from our guests. Its not an entirely romantic story. Patrick and I met at the local pub. We were introduced by a mutual friend after Patrick texted her from across the room asking to meet her “hot friend”. After a few too many beers we left the pub together. I ended up leaving my necklace behind at his house. When he came to return it he realised he had actually forgotten the necklace so he borrowed a CD of mine seeing as he was returning again anyway. But then he forgot the CD. He just kept borrowing things every time we met up until I just couldn’t imagine life without him.”

Photos today are by Justin Hill  who has captured beautiful, light filled moments with so much romance.

   

Stationery for the day was designed by Simple Things Press. Jen says “Our beautiful ring bearers bowl was a Paloma’s Nest purchase. Be Happy, Be Loving , Be True.”

Jen wore a gown by Karen Willis Holmes. She explains, “My dress was something that I never thought I would get. My mother and I looked for months and months until I had made an appointment with a dress maker (I wanted something with lace cap sleeves and a tulle skirt). We went back into Karen Willis Holmes in Melbourne to try a different dress on. The waist detail from another dress caught my eye and I thought that I may as well try it on while I was there. It turned out to be my dress! So comfortable and the only dress that made Mum cry when I put it on. Completely not what I thought I wanted but suited me and our wedding so well. We put a deposit on it there and then and to this day I still love my dress!”

Petra Cremming of Pomp and Splendour styled the wedding flowers. Jen remembers “Our amazing flowers!! Petra is just simply a flower genius. My mother and I are trained florists so we wanted the flowers to be amazing. We had one meeting with Petra and I could tell that she just ‘got’ what I was looking for. She showed up on the day and the flowers were perfect!”

Jen and Patrick married at Willowglen Weddings . Jen remarking “We used Willowglen for our ceremony. We were only the second couple to ever get married there. The couple who own and run the venue were absolutely fantastic. They are passionate about their property and they were so helpful on the day. Superstars! They had the beautiful floating deck over the pond that we used for our ceremony spot. They also had lots of willow trees at the back of the property that we used for photos.

Nina Johnson of Blackboard Artworx created and sent our wedding program board down from the Sydney area. She was easy to work with and the board turned out so great.”

Jen walked down the aisle to ‘Your Hand In Mine’ by Explosions in the Sky. “It isn’t a very traditional song but as soon as I heard it I loved it and knew without a doubt that we would use that song.”

Jen did try to wear a veil! She tells “My veil wouldn’t stay in! I wasn’t sure if I wanted a veil but, while wedding dress shopping with my mum and sister, we decided that a veil completed the look. We had to put it back in three times before the ceremony and during the ceremony the wind blew it out. My sister caught it mid air before it fell into the pond! The flying veil was a memorable moment of the ceremony.”

“For our vows, we both thought we wanted to write them ourselves. Our celebrant gave us a few pages of examples and we both picked the same passage to use with no changes at all. It was a great feeling to know that we think of love in the same way.”

“We really tried to make sure that we were true to ourselves in everything that we organised. From the ceremony to the bridal party to the traditions we wanted to keep. We were beginning our lives as husband and wife and we didn’t want any expectations to shadow who we are as a couple.”

“Our oversized balloons were an idea to save on money at the ceremony. They looked fantastic and made for great balloon release photos.”

Of their photographer, Jen says “Our photographer was Justin Hill was recommended to us by another photographer. He and his wife, Angi (also his assistant) were so fantastic! They were such lovely people and fit into our day so well. On one hand, we had people wondering where the photographer was because he was so unobtrusive and on the other, we had people asking us if they were our friends that we had asked to do our photos. Justin captured such beautiful images on the day and was so flexible and worked so quickly. He caught the mix of documentary and traditional images we wanted so perfectly. We would recommend them to anyone!”

Jen and Patrick chose Lydiard Wine Bar for their reception. Jen explaining, “Our reception venue was a bit of a dream come true. We had originally planned and booked our entire wedding to be held near Phillip Island and only six months out from the date our reception venue closed suddenly. There was no other venue in the area that fit our requirements (intimate and a bit glamorous, great food and wine with great service) so we cancelled everything and re-planned our entire wedding to be in Patrick’s hometown of Ballarat.

We had been for dinner at the wine bar once before and absolutely LOVED everything about it. We were frantically sending emails on the day we found out the previous venue had cancelled and the wine bar were free. Not only was our weekend the only weekend left available in the wedding season but they were also in our budget! Amazing!”

“I made the MR & MRS sign in the week leading up to the wedding and also made all the table numbers, table list display and all the signs.”

“At each place setting we laid a stem of lavender that we picked from our garden.”

Each guest received a jar of honey. Jen remembering, “My fantastic mum and sister spent a weekend pouring honey into little jars for our favors.”

“My amazing Dad made the frame for the Polaroid photo display which was a lot of fun. The wedding photos of all our previous generations’ wedding photos were also displayed.”

Of their first dance, well there wasn’t one! Jen explains “Patrick hates dancing (and being centre of attention) so we decided not to have a first dance. We asked the band to start playing and we invited everyone up on the dance floor. It was so much fun and we were much more comfortable dancing our silly dance without the spotlight. Our ring bearer, our nephew Jack, was the star of the dance floor. He had some impressive break dancing moves!”

Congratulations Jen and Patrick! Thank you for sharing your day with us! Thank you also to Justin Hill  and Pomp and Splendour for sharing today’s wedding with us!