Romantic Summerlees Wedding - Polka Dot Wedding

Alice & Pete

There is a distinct sense of love at Alice and Pete’s romantic Summerlees wedding. The gorgeous garden ceremony, the way the couple wanted to feel with their vendors, the fun reception and all the little touches in between that made it so very them. Rose Photos was there to capture it all.

Alice and Pete tell the story of how they met. “Pete and Alice were next door neighbours as children. Pete is 3 years older than Alice and was good friends with her older brother. He moved away when he was about 10 (she was 7) and they didn’t see each other for over a decade. Then through MySpace and mutual friends they ended up re-meeting as teenagers (well technically Pete was 22, but Alice was still a teen). They started dated and 8 years later he proposed.”

One of the funnier stories of the day occurred with the groom and groomsmen’s suits, Alice retelling, “When the groomsmen started getting dressed, they realised that the suit shop had given them children sized pants for two of them. The groom had a complete suit (which luckily he had tried on before) and the groomsmen had tried on the pants prior to ordering them from the store and hadn’t checked when we picked up the pants if they were the correct size.

An hour before the ceremony we had two groomsmen without pants, and then the photographer arrived to take the ‘getting ready’ photos. The groom and Alice’s brother had to pose for photos and buy some time while the other groomsmen drove to the nearest store to buy some replacement pants. The nearest suit shop was 30 minutes away in Bowral – they bought the first pair of navy pants they could find and upon returning to the venue realised they were the exact same make/colour as the original pants – what are the chances? So with minutes to spare, everything worked out and the bride was none the wiser!”

Alice chose a gown by Maggie Sottero, noting, “I chose the dress as I wanted something pretty and feminine and also something quite youthful. Originally I was planning to buy a strapless puffy dress but when I went back to the store with mum and bridesmaids to try the chosen dress on again before committing to buy it, I saw another woman trying on an amazing dress and changed my mind to buy that one instead.”

Alice and Pete married at Summerlees, Sutton Forest. “We only had the one venue – we wanted the ceremony and reception in the same place to maximise the time we could spend with guests, and minimise their effort of travelling between different venues. Pete and I wanted a country wedding so we could get away from the hustle and bustle of the city (we live in Sydney’s inner west) and have our family and friends come down for the weekend so everyone could relax and enjoy the whole weekend as a holiday.”

For her walk down the aisle, Alice chose “Whitley – I remember. This is our song and makes us think of the night we re-met as adults and started dating.”

Sumant Badami aka “‘Monty” officiated the ceremony, the bride noting, “Our celebrant was amazing. His name is Monty and he used to work at a youth centre near my high school so I knew him already. Our photographer was a good friend of mine from school and he told us that Monty was now a celebrant and we met up with him and booked him straight away. We wanted everyone in the wedding (celebrant, photographer and musician etc) to feel like family and friends who were sharing our day with us.

The vows were not traditional but nothing too crazy. We didn’t want anything religious, it was about two best friends in love. Our former room mate did a reading of ‘All I needed to know I learned in kindergarten” and Pete’s younger sister read out a Doctor Seuss inspired poem that Pete had written for Alice for their first Valentines Day together 7 years earlier.”

Of their photographer, Alice remembers, “Our photographer James Rose is amazing. James is a good school friend of Alice and there was no question of whether he would be the photographer from the second we got engaged. He had a great sidekick, Simon, so that James was also able to enjoy the reception while Simon carried on taking photos. James is great at capturing the natural emotions of the day and has an amazing eye. One of the guests of our wedding is getting married next year and she is getting James to photograph it (she is also getting our celebrant as well because they were all so good!).”

The decor was handmade by the couple, Alice remembers, “Pete is an illustrator and extremely creative and talented. We did the save the dates and invitations ourselves, we designed and made the entire table settings. Our bombonieres were individual succulent terracotta pots which we planted (and even aged the pots to made them look older). The mothers sourced our flowers from the flower market in Flemington and we arranged them ourselves (the bouquet was put together by a florist with the flowers our mums got from the market).”

The couple chose a ricotta cake for their wedding from Papa’s Patisserie.

Guests enjoyed a sit down meal catered by Sassy Catering. The bride noting, “Our caterers had an amazing attitude and seemed really chilled the whole way through which helped keep the mood of event quite relaxed.”

Of the first dance, Alice remembers, “Our first dance song didn’t play when we tried to select it so we had to chose another one at the last minute. It was meant to be ‘Stolen Dance’ by Milky Chance, but ended up being ‘This old love’ by Lior. I got embarrassed and invited everyone else up to dance after 30 seconds so our first dance was cut very short. I even got told off by our photographer for cutting it too short.”