Matt and Kirsty
As the owner and creator of Willow Events & Styling, my boutique planning and styling business, I was very certain of the overall feel I wanted to create for myself and Matt at our wedding. I am all about walking to the beat of your own drum, using your heart to guide your choices and being brave enough to be unique. I have always wanted to wear red and I found the perfect dress from Wheels & Dollbaby. Those closest to me know that if I can buy it in pink – I will. I also love clashing colours – thus the decision to style a red and pink wedding.
My bridesmaids were given a colour palette of paint samples and told to go and be themselves. Ironically, 3 out of 4 of them choose Review dresses. My girls with shorter dresses opted for red shoes and lips which blended perfectly with my dress. My maids all choose their own hair and makeup styles – we are all individual, with different skin tones, face and body shapes so why all be uniform? They all looked beautiful and most importantly – like themselves. One of my treasured bridesmaids gave birth to her first child via c-section 7 days before the wedding so I was so blessed to have her well enough to join us for the ceremony.
In lieu of flowers I hunted vintage Oroton mesh clutches for my girls to carry, which was also my gift to them. The uber talented Liv from Olive Farm Designs created a one off handmade silk flower head piece for me. I gave her an inspiration page of colours and styles and she created exactly what I wanted. I wanted to carry something different to the standard bouquet so I asked all the ladies attending our wedding to bequeath me a brooch and I made my own bouquet. I was incredibly touched by the thought and love behind each brooch.
We choose the 8th February, 2014 as it was a year to the day that Matt proposed. Trigg Beach was the location of the engagement so we chose the grass overlooking Trigg for the ceremony and the reception was held in the Trigg SLSC. It was possibly the windiest day Perth has ever seen but we persevered!
My children, Noah & Holly walked me down to aisle and gave me away – insert tissues! And my niece was my ring bearer. I lieu of a ring pillow I found the perfect red Christmas decoration flower and sewed a ribbon onto it to hold the rings.
Matt and I wrote the entire ceremony ourselves {apart from the legal jargon!} and our vows were a surprise to each other on the day. We are huge animal lovers and Matt surprised me by hiring a dog walker to bring our 3 x 4 legged children to witness the ceremony – very special. I hired props from Pretty Willow Prop Hire and asked Kristy to set it all up for me – she was fantastic! We were married under vintage French white doors, standing on a 70 year old Turkish Kilim rug. Our guests were seated on vintage white mismatched chairs and I made heart stakes to flank the aisle. My styling was soft, romantic and vintage, with blooms from Sweet Pea Florist decorating the reception.
Our photographer, Dave Biesse from Dave & Charlotte Photography followed my instructions perfectly. We wanted journalistic photography, barely any set shots, just capturing the moment.
I made chatterboxes for our guests to entertain themselves and in lieu of a guest book we had a vintage pink typewriter. As music lovers we had live music for the ceremony and Mint Jazz Band for the first 1.5 hours of the reception. Our DJ – Michael from Western Sounds Music was sensational and kept people on the dance floor.
Quality food was important to us and our close friends from Herb Faust Food created some delicious mere morsels for canapés and our guests all had their own serve of fish and chips. We followed this up by a sensational soft set chocolate dessert – and, no cake!
Such an amazing day – can I do it again?!
Images by Dave & Charlotte Photography
Ms Gingham says: I absolutely adore the use of red in this wedding, what a stunning gown! Congratulations Kirsty!
Kirsty says: “I’m first and foremost a Mummy to two incredible children, Noah {10} & Holly {7}. Recently married to my absolute soul mate – insert butterflies 🙂 A huge animal lover & have 3 four legged children, Honey, Winter & Sam”
You look amazing in your dress Kirsty. You did an amazing job. I’m so glad you agreed to help myself and Josh out planning our wedding in October this year. You have been wonderful from the start and have some amazing ideas. It’s great to know someone that loves their job this much. It really shows with your fantastic imagination.
Shucks 🙂 Thank you so much honey! Your day soon! xx