Liz and Nicholas

Sydney is such a beautiful location for a wedding and it’s even more special today – Liz and Nicholas returned from San Francisco (complete with wedding dress in tow) to marry in the place where they could be surrounded by people they love. Surrounding yourself with love is the epitome of a wedding after all. Liza and Nicholas celebrated their day with a happy, relaxed Sydney wedding.

As for how they met? The couple tell. “It depends on who you ask! Nicholas says the girls gate-crashed a boys-night-out…Elizabeth says they met through a mutual friend at a weekend drinks reception for a couple married earlier in the week. The facts they do agree on are that it was February 2009 and there was a definite immediate spark and both spent the rest of the evening discussing everything and anything. The talking hasn’t stopped since…!

When it came to proposing nearly three years later, Nicholas’ mantra was “third time lucky”! We were taking a road-trip from Sydney to regional South Australia for Christmas with Elizabeth’s parents in December 2011. Nicholas had designed the engagement ring with the help of Mark from Waldemar Jewellers without Elizabeth ever being aware – however, the ring (with its ethical diamond!) wasn’t ready before setting out on the road trip, so Mark posted it to Elizabeth’s parents’ PO Box and hoped for the best. It did arrive. However, it took three attempts to find the right moment to propose.

The first time the pair were at Naracoorte’s World Heritage listed caves and when sufficiently underground and in a romantic spot, Nicholas realised he’d left the ring above ground and in the car. The second attempt was a romantic drive to star gaze…all going well until a HUGE huntsman spider ran across the windscreen of the car…land speed records were broken in trying to get home to get rid of the spider. The third – and final – attempt was a tour of Elizabeth’s old primary school – she was on the jungle-gym in the playground doing a flip and Nicholas took the plunge and succeeded. Nicholas definitely got a high five for surprise – Elizabeth never ever had any inkling a proposal was in the works at all – we’d been so busy packing for our impending move to San Francisco that a proposal was never on the radar at all!”

Uber Photography captured the wedding with classic, beautiful photography and plenty of candid, relaxed moments in between.

Liz and her bridesmaid’s wore gowns and shoes from David’s Bridal.

The wedding was held at Old Government House, with the reception following at Lachlan’s Restaurant. Liz explains, “Although both Australian natives, we moved to San Francisco in January 2012, so planning our December 2012 wedding via long-distance meant we wanted somewhere where which could accommodate our ceremony, photos and High-Tea reception. Old Government House in Parramatta, Sydney, was perfect! We had looked at other National Trust locations around the Sydney area, but having to organise a location, a caterer and equipment hire would have been a bit too much to handle. In the end Old Government House and Lachlan’s Restaurant was simply perfect. We literally herded everyone onto the front lawn for the ceremony, filtered them through the House for a tour while we had pictures taken and then joined them in Lachlan’s for tea and scones! ”

Liz walked down the aisle to “‘Highland Cathedral” via a magnificent piper through Pipers of Distinction. This harked back to our distant Celtic heritages! ”

“A lot of friends traveled from overseas to be at our wedding; we had friends from Finland, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong, as well as lots of domestic travelers from regional South Australia (where Elizabeth grew up and where her family still lives). It was so important to share our day with them – that’s the reason we flew back to Australia for our wedding, it was all about spending it with the people we loved most!”

We included a Celtic hand-fastening ceremony as part of our wedding. We had our mothers bind our hands together and tie a series of knots (which lead to the phrase “tying the knot”) in a ribbon, before placing the ribbon in a bag which we will eventually display with our wedding photographs.

Of their photographers Liz says, “Kate and Chris at Uber Photography were amazing! We already knew they would be as Nicholas had been a groomsman in another wedding they photographed; Nicholas is not a big “smile and say cheese” sort of person, so when he realised having your photo taken could be fun, he was keen to get Uber on board. Kate and Chris work so well together – the traditional and the modern styles compliment each other and were just what we wanted.

We wanted some traditional and timeless pictures and we wanted something different and classy to hang on our walls. We were adamant our photographs couldn’t take us away from our guests for more than 45 minutes – they made magic during that time! And they were both such a breeze to work with! Organising Uber was the first thing we did once we decided to plan the wedding – we had them booked even before we organised a date. Kate and Chris were also generous enough to recommend videographer Troy at Encore Media who put together the most amazing flick of our day. We were so excited to see it the next day at our follow-up picnic day! Perfect!”

“Friends had collected jars for months before hand and we decorated them simply with brown paper and ribbon for table decorations. We also made bunting (we – Nicholas helped!!) for our picnic the following day. A lovely artistic friend designed our wedding invitations for us and I made the bridal party’s hydrangea bouquets and boutonnieres for the parents.”

The celebration didn’t end there, Liz tells, “That evening we treated our bridal party and readers to dinner at our favourite restaurant (Nigrils) before joining everyone again the following day for a picnic. When we lived in Sydney we would eat here quite often and had undertaken some of the cooking classes here too. This was as much a “thank you” to our close friends as it was a treat to ourselves! And you can’t get peshwari naan in San Francisco – so Nicholas was doubly excited! The picnic was outdoors at Clontarf Reserve, catered for by a brilliant friend, Claire Graham, to make sure we got to spend as much time as possible with everyone who had traveled so far to be at our wedding. It was also a chance for friends to relax, bring their children and have a laugh and catch up. By this stage we’d been living in the US for nearly a year, so it was a brilliant chance to properly catch up with everyone!”

Congratulations Liz and Nicholas on your marriage! Thank you for sharing your story with us! Thank you to Uber Photography for sharing today’s wedding with us!