A Cheeky Little Wedding – Part 1

Since John and I had given ourselves only 3 months to organize the whole wedding, everything flew by very quickly. We had already booked in our venue Riverside at Woodbridge. We found a celebrant we loved in Esther Bliss from Celebrate with Bliss, and had booked the photographer we loved Loren Ioppolo from Nectarine photography, and our invites were out. We had left the invites a little late so we needed a lot of help, especially because all we were sure we wanted was recycled paper and no flowers or bling. So we stumbled into Lala Design in Leederville and spoke to Lala who was amazing! She gave us some ideas and walked us through the entire design process then even rushed the printing for us. She really was our lifesaver when it came to the invites, and they couldn’t have turned out better.

I felt confident we had most things done. My mum and I were doing all the flowers and decorations ourselves, and John and I had decided we wanted a very casual but pretty style, so for weeks before we had been putting lace and twine on jars, making kusudama to hang painting photo frames with blackboard paint and collecting doilies and lace table cloths from op shops. Riverside owner Suzie also had some bits and pieces she was happy to let us use.

Mum and I picked up the flowers the night before. Originally we were going to get them from a local wholesale florist but in the end we found a little corner store just near mum’s house that had the most beautiful flowers for around the same price we were looking at through the wholesaler. This is also where I found the Kale and baby’s breath I had wanted to make the bridesmaids bouquets from. I also added a few brooches in to them as my Mum made my bouquet for me out of brooches. She also attached a bracelet that my grandfather had given my Nanna when they first started dating, which Nanna then had engraved with my name and gave to me when I was born. This was my something old.

We had fallen in love with our venue riverside at woodbridge early on. The owner Suzie was amazing and almost like having a wedding planner, she was great.

Finding a wedding dress that I loved proved to be so much harder than I originally thought. After visiting all the usual bridal boutiques I was getting worried as I was struggling to find a dress that was not strapless or white and sparkly… as beautiful as all these dresses were they just weren’t me. I had originally wanted a tea length dress in a tulle or chiffon type fabric in a rose or champagne colour. I then realised I wanted my bridesmaids in pastel vintage style party dresses in knee to tea length, so I changed my mind and went for floor length. After weeks of looking I decided to try trusty old etsy. I searched for tulle champagne wedding dress, and there it was… THE dress!!  I loved it straight away, so I sent my measurements along (every measurement possible) and that was that. Wedding Dress tick.

I wanted the bridesmaids to be in different colour pastels and just wanted the 1950s style skirt and tulle fabric, but left the style and colour choices to them. I also wanted to pay for the dresses and makeup and hair as I knew how pricey being part of a wedding party could get and didn’t want them stressed about it. I had 3 of my girls and my very fabulous Male friend as my bridesmaids. Pj was happy to find a blazer in his chosen colour (mint green). Once they all found pictures of what they were happy with and chosen colours we measured the girls up and sent all the details along to another etsy seller. She had a basic tulle dress advertised, so I just emailed her regarding what we were looking for and she was happy and excited to make them for us.

The next thing was shoes. I had picked out the shoes I wanted pretty much straight away, but they weren’t even released yet! I knew they were due to be released before the wedding though. They were Melissa shoes which I’m just a little obsessed with, as if melissa shoes weren’t amazing enough on their own, Karl Lagerfeld has paired up with Melissa for a line of shoes and I quickly fell in love with the ice cream ones.

About a month before the wedding I found out the Australian release had been pushed back, I had a tiny freak out and hit the internet. The only place I could find that would ship them to Australia before the aussie release was Saks fifth Ave. Thank the universe because I had no back up plan. Saks were great, delivery took only days and the shoes were perfect, they even said if they were the wrong size they would happily collect them by courier and send me the other size free of charge.

Then I only had the hair and make up to book in. My cousin recommended a salon in Maylands called East Salon, so I contacted Sharon the salon owner and booked her in. As we were quickly approaching the wedding date, she didn’t have much time to get a grasp on what we all wanted as far as looks until the day of the wedding, and she and her staff did such an amazing job! Everybody was very happy with how it all turned out. We had the four bridesmaids, my mum and cousin and myself and we all looked great. The girls there were all so lovely and it made the morning a lot less stressful being surrounded by laughter and smiles. Also Mum and my cousin Bec brought strawberries and chocolate sauce, champagne and other nibbles to the salon. All in all it was a very enjoyable experience and we all left looking stunning.

After getting our hair and make-up done we all headed back to Crown metropol Perth where I had booked a room the night before for me and my bridesmaids to get dressed and wait for the car. We had hired our car through SoCal limos. We had wanted a vintage car and they were the only ones who seemed to have a car that was fitting, plus they were great to deal with. Instead of charging the car hire for the entire 9 hours of wedding they only charged us for the time we actually used the car, which we had found nobody else did. We also had to grab our mini holga cameras which I had given each of the bridesmaids so we could capture the day from our own point of  views.

And then, suddenly it was wedding time. eeep!

Images by Nectarine photography

Ms Gingham says: Soooo exciting! I love the build up of the day captured so beautifully!

Nichola says: “I’m Nichola, I’m 27 and I live in Perth with my amazing fiancé John and our kitty Whiskey. I work in an arts & Craft store, as I’m a huge fan of the afternoon and also studied art & design. When I have time to spare I love to ride my bicycle or go for a roller skate with my lovely girl friends, we just like having a laugh and a wine and talking about movies, music and shows we have come across, or checking out new bars and exhibitions and we all have our own styles and personalities. In the end (as cheesy as it sounds) I’m just an ordinary girl with a love of fun, laughter & lovely things.”

Next Monday, Nichola is back with Part 2 of her cheeky little wedding!