Urban Industrial Wedding - Polka Dot Wedding

Bea & Sam

What happens when two architects with a laser engraving business (TheMakeLab) tie the knot? An incredible urban industrial wedding that’s what! Bea and Sam’s day was filled with just about as much personality as they could cram in. From the ceremony backdrop – built by the groom himself, to the laser cut details that filled every corner. But while the aesthetics shine, the couple and their own story did even more. Jonathan Ong was there to make sure it was captured in all its modern glory.

The newlyweds tell their story. “We knew of each other as fellow students in the same cohort while in university but never really connected on a personal level. Strange how things worked out, but in the year in between our undergrad and postgrad, a couple of friends and ourselves took on a business venture providing design and laser cutting services. While we were keeping ourselves busy growing the business, we became oblivious to our growing fondness for each other. Business hours soon turned into date hours, which then evolved into date years, and now we find ourselves Married! (*gasp) ”

Bea chose a strapless ball gown from Raffaele Cuica, remembering “I was never one to dream about my ultimate wedding dress. Thankfully, the lovely ladies at Raffaele Ciuca, which was the first store I stepped into, had a good eye for these things. She picked out a dress for me, I put it on, and in that moment it dawned on me that I was getting married! I tried on several more in the coming weeks but none of them really took my breath away as much the first one did. Funnily though, it is exactly the style both my partner and myself never thought I’d go for.”

Cargo Hall played host to both the ceremony and reception for Bea and Sam. The newlyweds remarking, “We had both our ceremony and reception at Cargo Hall located along the river in South Wharf. The venue itself was a re-purposed shipping warehouse that featured its original steel roof structure spanning across the entire hall. It was still in construction when we first went down to view the venue but we were both drawn to the character of the place and best of all the proximity and views of the city.

Urban: Check! Industrial: Check! The size of the hall was perfect for the number of guests we were intending to have, car-parking was easy at the DFO shopping centre, public transport a short walk away, and best of all, the proximity to Hilton where we stayed the night before and after the wedding.”

Kicking off the laser cut decor, as a nod to the couple’s business TheMakeLab, were the welcome sign and programs, Bea and Sam telling “We wanted the ceremony to be FUN! We enjoyed planning the wedding and wanted to make the event just as enjoyable for our guests. We also wanted to take our wedding as an opportunity to push our creative boundaries in laser cutting and promote the vast possibilities of laser cut wedding items. Anticipating a fashionably late arrival of the bride, we designed the wedding program on foldable cardboard gems that kept the guests entertained. Guests were then welcomed to fill the gems with lollies and bikkies from our refreshment bar while waiting for the ceremony to begin.”

Bea tells, “The venue itself was lined with bentwood chairs, a 20m long turf aisle, flowers in metal buckets, and featured some made by the groom, 2m high free-standing timber frames dressed in foliage as a backdrop at the altar.”

The bride’s mother made the flowergirl dresses and bridesmaids’ dresses using the salmon pink colour that was woven throughout the wedding.

Of her walk down the aisle, Bea remembers, “I chose Love is waiting – Brooke Fraser because this was the song that kept me going while I was waiting for him to ask me out in the early days of our relationship.”

Bea remembers, “It was so funny when the bridesmaids were all in tears throughout the ceremony and then realising that NO one remembered the tissues! Thankfully one groomsman had one piece of tissue and that was shared amongst the six bridesmaids AND myself!”

Pastor Neil Smith officiated the ceremony, Bea noting, “Being Christians ourselves, we were keen on keeping the traditions of a Christian wedding. We sang, we prayed, we took in the moment as our pastor preached a short sermon, but most important of all, we made our personal vows to each other. Then we were laughing, we were crying, and before we knew it, the moment had come. We were officially Mr & Mrs.”

Lovers of design, the couple decided with their photographer to take their photographs in the car park of Weylandts Furniture Shop in Abbotsford. Of their photographer, the newlyweds remark, “Jono Ong was an easy choice for us as we had always admired his artistic style and trusted in his creative capabilities. He was also a friend to us which completely took the awkwardness out of the picture.”

Meanwhile back at Cargo Hall, The Details Co and her team worked to flip the room into a sparkling reception space. Long tables ran the entire length of the room and festoon lighting twinkled overhead. On the tables sat plenty of candlelight and greenery with hand painted cement bricks adding to the industrial feel of the styling, along with plenty of laser cut wooden details of course!

The couple used their company TheMakeLab to make most of the decor, explaining, “We took our wedding as a big creative project to push the limits of laser cut wedding stationary. We had at the end of it created our own save the dates, invites, bonbonnieres, table numbers, menus, wedding program, photo booth props, signage and customised a whole bunch of other things.” Guests received fragrance diffusers with personalised laser engraved lids, and a note “May your life leave a fragrance that lingers for generations.”

The colour of salmon pink was injected through the decor, Bea noting, “As we are both architects who have spent most of our time in cities, we felt it an understatement that our wedding was to take on this theme of urban industrial with a splash of grey and salmon pink that represented the colours of the business that brought us together.”

Of the first dance. Bea explains, “Once again, we wanted our dance to be FUN! We chose to dance to Etta James’ hit song At Last and worked with a friend who helped choreographed a simple fun piece for us. We were, at the time, slightly over ambitious and were looking up So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars for ideas. It was a lot of fun practicing, realising our Actual capabilities, and simply just putting ourselves out there. In saying that though, it was cause for a lot of unnecessary nerves that evening but we were in such a joyous mood we totally enjoyed the moment. Some guests were holding up their table numbers as scores when we took our last bow.”

“We wanted the wedding to really represent us in as many ways as possible. One special detail would have to be the flash dance at the end of the night. We had selected a Kinect dance routine from Youtube and to our guests surprise played it while everyone was busy dancing on the dance floor. Then we all broke out in unison mimicking the routine for the full length of the song and was truly such an awesome time of spontaneous choreography.”