Hunter Valley Country Wedding - Polka Dot Wedding

Rebecca and David

Rebecca and David chose Rebecca’s aunt’s property Mindaribba House for their Hunter Valley country wedding. Not stopping with one aunt, Rebecca’s other aunt, Helen English is renowned for her beautiful wedding gowns and of course was called upon when Rebecca walked down the aisle. Cavanagh Photography captured the dreamy wedding photographs filled with golden light, green grass and plenty of stolen kisses.

Rebecca tells their story. “Dave and I met a pub in Paddington. He was celebrating his AFL grand final and I was out for dinner with a friend. We were introduced through a mutual friend.”

One of Rebecca’s favourite parts of the day was the morning – champagne was flowing and beautification was on the agenda! She remembers, “Getting ready on the day was the most relaxed enjoyable experience. I had my twin sister, best friend, divine flowergirls and family everywhere helping.

My gorgeous hair and make up artist (Sherren Nunes from ‘The Glam Lab‘) made it such a fun day as we drank champagne and danced and sung the morning away. I showed her a picture of what I wanted that morning when I found a picture in a magazine. I also gave her the vague description of wanting smokey eyes for my make up and said that I trusted her and just sat back and let her do her thing. She even came to the service and gave me a touch up after the ceremony.”

Rebecca paired her Helen English wedding gown with Badgley Mischka shoes. Recalling her family’s involvement in the day, she tells, “The day before the wedding my beautiful mother-in-law gave me Dave’s grandmother’s diamond ring as my something old and to welcome me into the family. I was also lucky enough to have amazing family and friends to help the day go smoothly.

My other aunty, Helen English, designed my wedding dress. She has a boutique bridal shop on William Street in Paddington. I was able to choose 3 parts of different dresses to make my ideal wedding dress. There was something very special about having both my aunties contribute significantly to the big day.”

Rebecca’s bridesmaids wore black sequin dresses from Badgley Mischka. To finish off her own look, Rebecca added a beaded hairpiece from Stephanie Browne, recalling, “I loved my head piece. I chose it only a week before the wedding when I went to pick up my dress and my aunty had decided that the clip I had chosen was boring and convinced me into the headpiece. Turns out that Dave also loved it as he thought it was ‘Game of Thrones’ like. I felt amazing with it on and it complimented the dress perfectly.”

St James, Morpeth was chosen for the ceremony, Rebecca remarking, “Dave and I got married at St James Church in Morpeth. It was the most gorgeous little church and the ceremony was short and sweet with a perfect balance of religion and the importance of love and the commitment of marriage.”

Rebecca walked down the aisle to Pachabel’s Canon In D played from her mother’s ipad with only a slight hiccup kept from her until after the day. She remembers, “Things don’t always go smoothly but it’s amazing what people will hide from the bride until the next day. Turns out that the ipad decided not to work just before the ceremony but luckily my mum had downloaded icloud and it had transferred to her mobile and with a quick change to flight mode to avoid the phone ringing, it was all systems go.”

Hunter Valley Flowers created the floral arrangements for the day using white blooms and plenty of greenery.

Of their photographer, Rebecca says, “Cavanagh Photography were our photographers for the day. They were extremely professional and organised. The communication leading up to the day was fantastic and Adam was great to have around. He was personable and friendly and at times we didn’t even know he was there which led to some great shots. We had a our photos in just over 1 week after the wedding and loved every single photo.”

The reception venue, Mindaribba House had a special meaning to the bride, Rebecca explaining, “We had the reception at Mindaribba House which is owned by my Aunty, Bernadette Spacal. It is a stunning estate with a gorgeous reception room attached to the house with a warm, family feeling to it.”

“We had white lanterns around the pool and paper lanterns around the dance floor. We aimed for simple yet glamorous with only white and silver as a colour theme.”

The couple chose a white colour scheme for their wedding, Rebecca telling, “We were able to decorate the room as we pleased with three long tables, cut crystal glasses with candles, white flowers, white draped material from the rafters and a huge chandelier. Mindaribba is a special place for Dave and I as not only do we have family memories there, but my twin sister was also married there only 8 weeks earlier. She had a cocktail country wedding with a live band and we had a sit down and put a completely different spin on the day for the guests that were common to both weddings.”

Each guest received a silver key bottle opener that was the name tag and wedding favour for the guests.

“We decorated the whole room. We had long white tables with with white table cloths.The centre pieces consisted of small square mirror tiles with cut glass tumblers of different sizes with candles reflecting light through the glasses and off the mirror tiles. We also had small glass vases with white flowers.”

Bev’s Catering catered the reception and created the two tier wedding cake while XYDJ was all about the music for the night, both vendors that Rebecca raved about, stating, “I was so happy with my caterer and DJ. They were both organised and professional. The food was amazing and people couldn’t stop raving about variety and how much there was. The caterer also made my cake which was double choc fudge with white chocolate silver ganache.”

“I also loved how we organised the food. We started with canapes, then an antipasto entree, mains and then cake for dessert.”

The traditional speeches were a highlight of Rebecca’s night. ” The speeches were so emotional and heartfelt that even guests who only knew one side were crying.”

The dance floor was outside under the stars beside the pool lined with candlelit lanterns. Rebecca remembers ,”We had our first dance straight after the speeches and cake cutting so that we could go straight into dancing. The song we chose was “Can’t take me eyes off you” by Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons. When the music became more uptempo, the bridal party came in and then everyone else followed soon after. It was a great way to start the party.”