Claudia and Adam’s Whimsical Garden Wedding At Heide Museum

Claudia & Adam

Claudia and Adam’s wedding is filled with the most smile making details. A secret message from the bride’s mother in her wedding gown, a dance off, a beautiful modern Art Museum as the backdrop,  a bouquet filled with herbs and most of all? A couple that love each other so deeply and honestly. What a beautiful whimsical garden wedding at Heide Museum captured by Samara Clifford.

On how they met, Claudia tells, “We met about seven years ago through friends. I was living in Perth at the time but after a year of very casually seeing each other, I moved to Melbourne. We lived separately for a little while but after an extended holiday together in Berlin we moved in with each other. I then moved to Canberra for work, so we spent another 18 months long distance before finally settling together in Melbourne. We bought a house together in Flemington and our dogs, Max and Albi, followed shortly after. Adam is the Federal member for Melbourne and Claudia is a public servant and yoga teacher. Adam often works weekends and Claudia teaches yoga but we try and take our two dogs out for a long walk together – or a run if we’re feeling energetic. We also enjoy cooking, spending time on the couch watching DVDs and getting out of the city as much as possible!”

Claudia’s mother ( Geraldine Quinelle at Qnique Designs ) made both the bride’s gown and the bridesmaid dresses. Claudia explaining, “My mum designs wedding dresses so buying one off the rack was never an option for me. We had a few goes at getting it right, including an entire colour, length and fabric change. My mum lives in Perth so I didn’t see or try on the final dress until three days before the wedding. Thankfully, it fit beautifully! It was really challenging creating a dress together over email and photos but I think the end result was great.”

Claudia and Adam met before the ceremony for photographs.

Pomp & Splendour created the floral arrangements for the day which kept with the couple’s colour scheme. Claudia noting, “The guiding theme for the wedding was Australian modernist so the original colour palette was the three colours on a silver princess gum – smokey grey, smokey green and a vibrant pinky red.”

Claudia’s mother added a little surprise to her daughter’s wedding gown. “I particularly loved the little surprise sewn onto one of the layers in the skirt – a small felt garland spelling out ‘love’.”

Claudia and Adam walked to their ceremony together, Claudia remembering, “Adam and I entered the ceremony together. It was a really lovely moment to see all of our friends and family waiting for us. I think I can remember whispering to Adam ‘wow, they’re all here for us!’. The couple chose the song Bright Eyes “First Day of My Life”   for their entrance.

The newlyweds snuck off alone after saying their vows, Claudia remembering, “Between the ceremony and the reception, Adam took me to a secluded spot in the garden to catch our breath. It was nice to spend a moment reflecting on what we’d just done.”

The bride created a favour tree for their cocktail reception, explaining, “I constructed all the favours myself and also handmade the signs directing guests to the favours tree and guestbook. For our guestbook, I asked guests to write their messages on squares on cotton, which I am making into a wall hanging. We gave silver princess seeds to our guests as a favour, as well as a coloured Leunig illustration of his poem The Summer Palace.”

Guests enjoyed a cocktail reception at Cafe Vue At Heide.

The evening ended with barefoot dancing including, “A dance off between my 12 year old dance student cousin and an ex-professional dancer was gold.” says Claudia.

Congratulations on your marriage Claudia and Adam! Thank you for sharing your day with us! Thank you also to Samara Clifford for sharing today’s wedding with us!