Louise & Luke
There is an old world glamour to Louise and Luke’s elegant Fitzroy town hall wedding. Drawing inspiration from an old bridal illustration and the bride’s love of all things old and beautiful, the couple created a day that was beautiful in its elegance. They chose It’s Beautiful Here to photograph their day.
Louise tells their story. “We are, as my dad said in his wedding speech, Ying and Yang! I work in fashion, and Luke is a sport man! Luke has over the years learned a thing or two about fashion and one of my favourite pastimes, anything vintage! I on the other hand have been known to attend a sporting event even if I’m not clear on who is winning! We were both on nights out with our housemates when we met.
Luke proposed. Keeping a secret from me is difficult, as I am always interested to know what is going on! The purchase and hiding of the ring was done without me knowing, the ring came on a camping trip but Luke didn’t find the right time. The proposal occurred one Saturday morning while I was sitting on the couch wearing my pyjamas and glasses! Luke had prepared a champagne breakfast! Very unexpected! We had looked at rings prior and I couldn’t stop thinking about a vintage ring we had seen, so when that appeared I was very happy!!”
The couple married in a stately garden, with styling by Miss Mooi Weddings and Events. Louise tells, “Our ceremony was at the Pioneer Womens Memorial Garden – a beautiful formal garden in Kings Domain in Melbourne, that fitted perfectly with the tone of our day. The garden has a formal layout, with a symmetrical pond and grotto, which represented to formal symmetry that we were looking for. We kept the decorations to a minimum, choosing vintage French chairs and a table, and allowing the beautiful garden design and colours to shine through.”
For her walk down the aisle, Louise remembers, “We had an acoustic solo guitarist, who did an amazing job, so we chose At Last by Etta James, as this sounded beautiful and light.”
Brent McGregor officiated the ceremony.
“We wanted a day that was intimate, something organic in its mood, with a formal twist, and we also wanted to include some vintage touches. It was important to us to invite the people who truly mattered – we had 56 guests, all of our close family and friends. The main inspiration came from my fashion magazines and blogs, the image for our invitation came from a 1960’s Nina Ricci bridal photo, which set the scene our look.”
The bride wore a gown by Mariana Hardwick, noting, “We wanted a formal style to our outfits, as I reminisce about the old fashioned days of dressing up in formal wear! I wore a beaded tulle gown that was made to measure from Mariana Hardwick, that had sleeves and a long veil – giving a formal look but with a vintage take. As an old ballet student I’ve worn some fun costumes in my time, and knew wearing a veil would be fun, but I had no idea how fun! I now want to include veils in my everyday look!” Monica Gingold styled her hair and makeup.
“We were blessed with the weather, we had an outdoor ceremony on the first weekend in spring in Melbourne. It was the only thing we couldn’t control.. The weather forecast suggested some showers with sunny periods. We had our reception venue as the indoor back up but we made the call early on the day to go ahead with the outdoor ceremony and we were blessed with a beautiful afternoon which produced some amazing photos, capturing the sun breaking through into the gardens.”
Pomp and Splendour created the floral arrangements for the day, the bride remembering, “I had chosen one flower I liked and left the rest to the florist, and Petra did a spectacular job! I honestly couldn’t have imagined in my wildest dreams the flowers being so spectacular, in particular the mantle piece arrangement, which was our centrepiece – I highly recommend letting the suppliers do what they do best, as I found by not being too controlling, the vendors were able to have the freedom to work their magic.”
Of their photographers, Louise remembers, “The photographers were excellent, both Scout and Kat immediately put us at ease with their relaxed but organised manner. It was great to share the day and night with them both and the photos (as you can see) turned out amazing.”
The Reading Room, Fitzroy Town Hall was chosen for the reception, Louise telling, “The reception was at the Fitzroy town hall – in the reading room – which is a beautiful old vintage library, which still has the bookshelves and books. As with our ceremony location, we chose the reception as the room already had such character, with the floorboards, chandeliers, and books, we just needed to add our touches. We sourced vintage napkins, and had over 300 candles lining the bookshelves and tables, and then Vue Events took things to a whole new level with their styling of the tables and dessert table. We also wanted to soften the look with flowers, and the floral arrangement on the mantle piece was designed by Pomp and Splendour to be the centre piece, which worked well with the mirror and fireplace.”
The bride, who adores vintage, sourced vintage napkins for each place setting.
“We wanted to keep the overall look clean, and wanted to our allow our supplier to run free, but we also wanted to add some small personal touches to ensure the day reflected our tastes. So we did little things like source vintage linen napkins for the tables, and then those combined with the amazing Vue De Monde settings meant we had the ultimate combination!”
“When we walked in we couldn’t believe how amazing the venue looked, it was like nothing we ever imagined! ”
Vue Events catered the wedding, the bride remarking, “The caterers (Vue De Monde) were an obvious highlight, we are forever grateful to Cory Campbell, Muriel Breau and Shannon Bennett for making it all possible. The food was to die for, and the dessert table was amazing, plus their styling took our choices to a whole new level that we could never had imagined!”
Of the “accidental” first dance, Louise remembers, “We didn’t plan a formal first dance, however, we really liked ‘The Wedding Song’ by Angus and Julia Stone so when DJ Ryan Griffith announced he was going to ‘slow things down a bit’ everyone randomly left us alone on the dance floor and we danced solo to it, which was really nice.”
Congratulations on your marriage Louise and Luke! Thank you for sharing your day with us! Thank you also to It’s Beautiful Here for sharing today’s beautiful wedding!
beautiful wedding photography!