Gillian & Brad
What happens when you’re both from different countries? And all of your family and friends want to celebrate your wedding with you? You meet in the middle like Gillian and Brad did – that’s what! Gillian comes from Canada, Brad Australia and together they chose a Hawaiian destination wedding to celebrate their nuptials. The happy couple worked with photographer Krista Fox Photography and planner Crystal Adair-Benning to plan their tropical celebration.
The newlyweds share the story of how they came to be. “It must have been in the stars! A fortuitous string of events had to line up for us to even be in the same place but it happened like this in 2010. Gillian, a Canadian teacher, had been working in Australia for three years in the outback mining town of Kalgoorlie, WA. She had just returned from a holiday in Canada when she was invited to a colleague’s house under the guise of planning for the upcoming term. Little did she know her colleague was also playing Cupid.
Brad, an Australian living in Perth who was originally from the south coast of Western Australia was visiting his best mate, the husband of Gillian’s colleague and from this meeting, the story of the two together started where two hearts would be joined for a lifetime.”
Gillian and Brad chose Maui Gardens for their wedding, remembering, “Maui Gardens was the most breathtaking spot for a wedding! It was private, intimate and on a cliff, on the north shore of Maui. Our ceremony and reception was all in the one spot- ceremony by a waterfall and our reception was steps away on a higher terrace. Although it was a drive from Lahaiana, where our guests were staying, when they arrived, they were just in awe of the beauty that surrounded them.”
The wedding ceremony, officiated by wedding planner Crystal Adair-Benning was described as, “Personalized and inspired by Hawaii. We wrote our own vows and let Crystal, our wedding planner add special touches – lei ceremony, message in a bottle, ukulele player.”
“We had our vows as messages in bottles and Brad hurled them into the ocean.”
Of their photographer, Gillian tells, “We were so thrilled to have Krista Fox as our photographer. She was so nice to work with and is amazing with what she does. We constantly feared for her life as she took bold moves to get the best positions for shooting pictures from rocky cliffs to being in the rainforest. Krista was so dedicated and researched spots and the best times for lighting for our day after shoot. We can’t thank her enough for capturing our day!”
Stemz styled tropical arrangements for the day, the bride remembering, “Our florist had pretty much culled the entire island for particular flowers she wanted and handmade leis for all our guests.”
The couple worked with wedding planner Crystal Adair-Benning who not only planned and styled the wedding, but also officiated it! The bride remembers,”Crystal took great care of us and our guests. She’s a wedding extraordinaire! Crystal always took the time to source things for us and consulted us along the way to ensure that our day was perfect! And we mean perfect! Even though she was in Canada and we were in Australia, we held Skype dates and messaged each other leading up to the date. Crystal was a lot of fun to work with and she had an idea for everything! We were really pleased to have her plan our big day.”
Guests were in for a festive treat, says Gillian. “Instead of a cake, we had a giant pineapple piñata with our wedding favours inside – Ray-Ban sunglasses.”
“We had hula dancers and guests got up to hula as well. Our guests were also entertained with fire dancers.”
Congratulations Gillian and Brad! Thank you for sharing your special day with us! Thank you also to Krista Fox Photography and Crystal Adair-Benning for sharing today’s celebration!
Join the conversation