City Restaurant Wedding - Polka Dot Bride

Mariaan & Phil

I love the chic city elegance of Mariaan and Phil’s wedding day. The photographs underneath city buildings, the moody Melbourne city backdrop, the views of the city and the decadent dessert table. The newlyweds wanted to celebrate their day in a relaxed style and by having everything close together and looked after by seasoned professionals, they got just that! Briars Atlas was there to capture it all.

Mariaan tells the story of how they came to be. “Phil and I met in at high school in New Zealand through mutual friends. By our wedding day we’d known each other for just more than half our lives, which is pretty fantastic looking back on it. After high school Phil moved to the US to study, but we kept in touch and became close friends. By the time we realised that we both wanted more from our relationship we had a lot of things to arrange – we lived in different countries, Phil spent some time in the US Army and wanted to follow that up with study in the US, and I had my own career and friends in New Zealand. In the end we decided to give long distance a go, and in 2011 moved to Australia together – finally in the same place! ”

Karly Drever styled the bride and bridesmaid’s hair and makeup.

Mariaan loved, “Getting ready with our families – we didn’t have a big bridal party, just my sister and Phil’s brother. Phil must be one of the few grooms to be who got a hair cut a couple of hours before his wedding, so clearly we were all very relaxed! We each walked to the ceremony with our respective families.”

Mariaan chose a gown from Mariana Hardwick, telling “I was lucky to find my gorgeous gown at Mariana Hardwick on my first day looking. Their lovely ladies did a wonderful job making each fitting special – while my mum and my sister were able to join me to choose the gown they didn’t see it again until the wedding day itself. Happily I was in good hands at Mariana Hardwick!”

Mariaan walked down the aisle to “Trumpet Tune by Purcell, played by St Michael’s fantastic organist, though I can’t remember hearing it at the time as I was too focused on not tripping down the stairs… Having both my Mum and Dad walk me down the aisle together was so special too.”

Mariaan and Phil married at St Michael’s Uniting Church. Mariaan tells, “We were married at St Michael’s Uniting Church on Collins Street in Melbourne’s CBD, and followed the afternoon ceremony with a dinner for 34 guests at the always amazing Vue de Monde. St Michael’s is such a beautiful venue with so much history, and even though we had such a small wedding there the venue felt oddly intimate.”

Mariaan’s bridesmaid wore a red lace dress from Review. Mariaan noting, “We didn’t have a colour palette or a real theme as such, which made it easy to co-ordinate everything. Clean whites, greens, all very simple. My sister’s bright frock was the perfect choice, together with my bright shoes (which I’ve worn a few times since – they remind me of such a great day!).”

Of their photographer, Mariaan remarks, “The charming and talented Oli Sansom of Briars Atlas was our amazing photographer. We both wanted more of a ‘documentary’ style to our photos, and wanted to capture the feeling of the day as it happened rather than having a lot of posed shots. On the other hand you want to make sure that the set group and family shots do happen during the day. Oli created the most beautiful images of the day and our guests, almost all of whom had traveled from overseas to join us. He is the real deal – the pictures really speak for themselves.”

Mariaan notes, ” The best thing about the day was just how amazingly relaxed everyone was. It helped that we only had such a small wedding, and that a lot of our friends we hadn’t seen for a few months. It was so exciting to see them, and to have them join us to celebrate our big day.”

The newlyweds chose Vue de Monde for an intimate dinner. Mariaan remarking, ” Vue de Monde was a great choice for us too. Their events team looked after every detail, made great suggestions and just killed it on the night. Our guests still remind us about how great the food and service was.”

Fleur created the floral arrangements for the day, Mariaan telling, “Fleur and Vue de Monde understood the brief perfectly – gorgeous clean arrangements and bouquets for the ceremony and a simple, clean setting with stunning food. Vue de Monde looked after our guests so well and all our guests still rave about the meal and wine. We really wanted to treat our guests who’d traveled so far and we were blown away with the whole experience.”

The couple skipped music and dancing for good conversation, explaining, “Neither of us are big dancers (love dancing at other people’s weddings, but couldn’t imagine dancing at our own…) so we didn’t have a band or any dancing. It was also one less thing for us to worry about planning and rehearsing!”