Adelaide Vintage Inspired Wedding

Claire and Anthony

There is plenty to love about Claire and Anthony’s Adelaide vintage inspired wedding captured by Kate Pardey Photography. From Claire’s vintage pink wedding gown, her short, flowered reception frock, The Spice Girls processional sung by friends and guests, the game of Hungry Hippo that kept guests entertained all night long and the wedding speeches which turned into song you would expect nothing less from a theatre producer!

Claire and Anthony answered our questions together and kick it off with the story of how they met. “Claire and Anthony met at a party in Melbourne on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in 2007. Anthony was teaching in Swan Hill in Victoria at the time, and a friend of his (Abby), who was also teaching in Swan Hill, invited him to her birthday party in Melbourne, where Claire was living. Abby told Anthony that she had a friend she thought he should meet – Claire. However, Abby didn’t tell Claire because Claire hated being set up with people. Claire doesn’t like to be told that she will like somebody. Eventually the party came about and upon arriving at the party, Anthony noticed Claire straight away, but instead of deciding to talk to her immediately, decided to talk to everyone else in the party, much to the surprise of Claire, who had noticed the arrival of Anthony and was a little put out that he had spoken to everyone but her.

Eventually, at the exact moment Claire was about to eat a cupcake, Anthony approached her and said ‘I hear you are a fellow thespian,’ being completely unaware of Claire’s hatred of that term. However, he managed to redeem himself and by the end of the night, in his slightly inebriated state, had offered Claire an engagement scarf as he had come to the realisation they would be together. Anthony made the commute from Swan Hill to Melbourne every Friday night to spend weekends with Claire and despite Claire getting the mumps within the first fortnight of them knowing each other, heading to Edinburgh for six weeks after the two of them only knowing each other for six weeks, their love flourished and led to their marriage this year.”

Claire wore a vintage frock for her wedding gown, explaining, “My first dress was a light pink, satin vintage 1940’s ballgown from Circa Vintage Clothing in Melbourne.”

The groom wore navy blue. “Anthony wore a blue Jack London suit and later changed into chinos and a navy blue velvet jacket also from Jack London.”

Tincat Cafe was chosen as the venue for the wedding celebrations, the couple telling, “We had the whole wedding at the Tin Cat Cafe in Adelaide. Housed in an historic Victorian terrace, the Tin Cat provides a glimpse of the fifties with the eclectic vintage decor. The whole cafe was like a larger version of our own house – with similar decor and vintage styling. There is a cute courtyard at the back that we were going to have the ceremony in but it rained so we changed the ceremony to the private gallery space upstairs.” Guests were asked to bring along photographs to adorn the windows.

“We chose the venue because it matches our style and personality. We wanted our wedding to be a big party and to not be stuffy and formal. The Tin Cat Cafe was the perfect place for our style of wedding! The owner, Claire, and the staff made us feel like one of their family and we went to visit them just about every two weeks in the lead up to the wedding – sometimes for wedding related planning and sometimes just to say hi and hang out with them. They really made us feel like the place was ours for the day. In fact, we miss them now that it’s over!”

The couple handmade favors. They tell, “We made our own jams and chutneys to give to the quests as wedding favours and we tied luggage tags around them with our Clanthony monogram on one side and ‘Thank You’ on the other.”

Claire and Anthony worked with Alicia from Akimbo to create their stationery suite, remembering “Our collective name is Clanthony so we had a Clanthony monogram designed for us that we stamped on the envelopes of the invitations as well as the tags for the jams, chutney and wine bottles. We designed our own menu and even included special New Zealand dip from Claire’s motherland.”

The couple chose paper flowers in lieu of fresh, telling “Our handmade flowers were made by Suzanne Fielden of Portland, Victoria. We met Suzanne when we were living in Portland so we asked her to make the flowers for us. It was the first time she had done such a thing and she did an incredible job. The flowers are stunning. She made one large red, cream and pink bouquet for Claire and two smaller cream and gold bouquets for the bridesmaids. She made three button holes for Anthony and the groomsmen and then an assortment of other flowers that we arranged into small glass bottles and distributed around the venue. Most of the guests ended up taking some home with them!”

For the processional, Claire and Anthony remember, “We asked our friends, Siobhan and Jeremy, to play a song for us in place of a reading (they did all the music for the ceremony). We wanted it to be a surprise. We loved it when they started singing “When Two Become One” by the Spice Girls but we loved it even more when all the guests joined in the chorus!”

Cecilia White performed the ceremony.

Claire and Anthony remark “We styled the whole wedding ourselves. Claire is a theatre producer so we treated the wedding like another theatrical event. The whole process was really fun! We had lots of fun arranging every detail and making some of the elements ourselves.”

Of their photographer, Claire remarks, “Our photographer, Kate Pardey, was sensational. She went above and beyond the call of duty. We booked her before anything else and she was so helpful and really encouraged us to start planning. She helped us find our venue and gave us lots of advice on how to make our wedding unique and reflective of our personalities. We love Kate because her style is quirky and eclectic like our own.

We didn’t really want any posed photos or to leave the wedding at all for hours of photos. She was happy to take candid shots of us and our guests around the venue having good times. She also set up a photo booth which proved to be a big hit!”

The couple organised a game room for guests for an added dose of fun. Explaining, “We wanted our wedding to be fun for our guests so we set up a games room filled with favourite games from our childhoods including Jenga, Pick-Up-Sticks, Operation, Hungry Hungry Hippos, and Connect 4. Pick Up Sticks and Operation proved to be the most difficult games as the festivities went on into the night and more delicious Clanthony bubbles was consumed. But Hungry Hungry Hippos clattered away right until the end of the night.”

The cake carried the theme, Claire and Anthony explaining “Our cake was made by Sweet Treats Cakes and Cupcakes to match the detail on our invitations.”

“We had a lovely moment outside the venue when we went out to have some extra photos with Kate. The band found us out there so we got to have a special dance with no one but the band and Kate watching. ”

“We decided to live stream our wedding for our family and friends in New Zealand, the UK and other States, who couldn’t make it. It was marvelous to know that they were still a part of our day even if they couldn’t be there in person. Kate’s mother, Jayne, did the recording honours for us and she even captured the speeches and first dance. People were even tweeting about our nuptials as they watched! Since we didn’t have a cinematographer, it’s been fun to watch our day back again months after it happened.”

There was even theatrics, or at least singing during the wedding speeches! The newlyweds remember, “We also inadvertently sang to one another as part or our bride and groom speeches. Claire sang ‘A little bird told me’ by Evelyn Knight which took Anthony (and the guests) completely by surprise and then Anthony sang Dusty Springfield’s ‘I only want to be with you’ to Claire which took her completely by surprise! Anthony accompanied his song on the ukulele which he then gifted to Claire as her wedding present.”

” The rain didn’t put our guests off dancing in the courtyard to the music of The Various Nefarious late into the night.” The couple had their own very special twist n a first dance Claire recalling, “We both changed our clothes into party attire and danced to ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’ by The Darkness. We had asked our band, The Various Nefarious, to do a cover for us and perform it live which they did. We have a flamboyant, swing style of dancing and we hadn’t practiced anything so we just let ourselves go. There were lots of dips and lifts and twirls and swishing of skirts. Half way through we invited everyone to join us so we all danced together. It was awesome and the best part was that everyone thought we had rehearsed our dance religiously because it was apparently excellent to behold! ”