Jessica & Viktor’s Whimsical Country Wedding

Jessica & Viktor

I love so much about this whimsical country wedding. There are pretty details of course – the beautiful colours in the floral arrangements, the bright flower crown, the stunning venue. But what I love most of all is the cosy feeling of family, of friends, of everyone coming together to celebrate one very special love story. Jacquie Manning of One Day Somewhere was there to capture it all.

Jessica and Viktor relay the story of how they met. “It was Saturday night on the dance floor of one of Sydney’s biggest clubs. The competition and talent was fierce. On one side, a handsome man who had won many faux Zoolander walk-offs for his ‘tude and moves, the other a woman whose childhood dream was to be a dance and whose party trick during school was her infamous ‘booty shake’. So when these two competitive toe-tappers made contact on the dance floor, it was on like donkey kong.

Viktor was challenged to a ‘booty shake off’ dance battle to hip hop music, the winner of which is still debated to this day. A dance off was recreated as the bridal dance at the wedding and the couple often do Hip Hop classes together to improve their game for the odd spontaneous dance off challenge in their living room to Kanye or Snoop Dogg!”

Jessica worked with Corston Corture to create her dream gown, telling, “I have dreamed of having a backless dress since I was little. I knew exactly what I wanted and when I went to Corston Couture and didn’t find exactly what I wanted, Coral asked for details of what my ideal gown would look like, drew it on the spot with the help of some Pinterest prompts, and made it happen! It took six months of fittings to create the dress of my dreams, it was so light and comfortable to wear that we did a 12 minute bridal ‘waltz’ mash up (including a back flip) with complete ease!”

Jessica and Viktor chose The Stables, A Country Wedding Binda  for their wedding, remarking, ” I (Jessica) grew up in Tamworth so always wanted to have wedding that spoke to my heritage and love of the country. The bride, having lived in Sydney for seven years, and groom, who grew up in Sydney, didn’t want to ask their friends to travel too far so Binda was a more accessible option than Tamworth and proved to be arguably the most beautiful country venue in rural NSW. We fell in love with the venue and landscape, which is similar to Tamworth’s rolling hills, instantly. The venue was suitably elegant and stylish with old world charm of antique doors and props used in the Great Gatsby movie.”

Jessica chose Neopolitan Dreams by Lisa Mitchell for her walk down the aisle.

The ceremony was something special, Jessica asked her mother to walk her down the aisle while her father performed the marriage ceremony, assisted by Jan Fenton to perform all the legalities. The newlyweds note, “The aim was to have an outdoors ceremony to make the most of the rolling hills and incredible backdrop the venue offered. A huge floral arch was created for the ceremony area and during the vows, a beautiful black horse cantered past dramatically, accentuating the charm, drama and beauty of the country setting. For readings we chose Corinthians 13:4 spoken by bride’s father and poems chosen by the groom’s mother and friend.”

Of their photographer, the newlyweds remark, “Jacquie endured the heat, weeds and horse-populated paddocks to get the most incredible bridal shots known to man. She was so easy-going that both bride and groom didn’t realise photo’s were being taken most of the time, which resulted in natural and emotive shots that weren’t posed or cliche looking.”

Jessica’s maid of honour styled the floral arrangements for the day adding to the whimsical feel.

Special touches were infused throughout the day. “Vik’s family is Latvian so Pirag, a Latvian savoury snack made laboriously with love and served at special family occasions, were lovingly made by his mother and served alongside the canapes, bringing a touch of Vik’s heritage to the occasion.”

The newlyweds chose a lunch time reception, noting, “We loved the longer duration of the reception being a long lunch variety. Enabled more time to relax after the ceremony and again spend more quality time with all the guests. The vibes in the open marquee were just excellent. Ability to not have to rush and stress on time lines with speeches and undertake some ad hoc fun.”

“The best man got a bit over-excited entering into the marquee/reception to Katy Perry and did a knee slide in his NEW suit on the brick floor, which looked incredible and certainly got the party started, but resulted in a torn suit and bloody knee!”

PB Catering served up a family style long lunch for the wedding guests, Jessica and Viktor telling, “Every step of the planning involved us coming back to our main vision of how it was going to feel being a guest. We really wanted to ensure the wedding was enjoyable for the special people in our life we had invited so dedicated a lot of time to running through every part of the day from a guest’s perspective to ensure it would be fun, food and wine filled and comfortable at every moment. A four day run sheet helped with this, thanks to Jess’s (bride) anal organisational skills from her PR background! One element we were very picky on was food, both being avid foodies and coming from a family of food and wine connoisseurs!”

Three Wise Mums created custom scented facial sprays (one for the ladies and ones for the gents) as wedding favors, inspired by the venue and its surrounds.

Festivities continued back at the reception with an incredible first dance. the newlyweds tell. “The first dance song was an eight minute mash-up of the most non-cliche songs around. Everything from Ke$ha to Kanye, Coldplay to Queen, Madonna to Mayer….even Aviici got a run! Choosing the songs and parts of each song for the compilation took ten months and involved hiring a music producer to cut the track. Roughly a quarter of the dance was choreographed by the bride’s close friend who is a professional dancer and choreographer and the remainder a legitimate impromptu dance battle.”

Congratulations Jessica and Viktor! I so enjoyed hearing the stories of your wedding day! A big thank you to One Day Somewhere for sharing today’s wedding with us!