Kirsten and Tom's Pretty Pink Maleny Wedding

Kirsten and Tom

Tom and I first met in Whistler, Canada. We were both on working holidays – him from the UK and me from Australia – when our paths crossed at a party one night. Some mutual friends of ours played match-maker and a few days later we went on our first date which lasted for hours.

From there, we spent every waking minute together until we both had to return home. After some months of long distance chats, Tom visited me in Australia for a holiday and we decided that it wasn’t just a summer romance. He moved to Australia permanently five months later so we could be together.

Tom proposed to me one Friday night completely out of the blue. We’d planned a long overdue date night and were on our way to a casual restaurant when he decided that we should take a walking detour down by the Brisbane River. He popped the question with the most amazing ring in front of the twinkling lights of the Story Bridge. I was in such shock I didn’t quite know how to react after saying yes! We celebrated with French champagne and cocktails at a Riverside bar before he surprised me with an amazing dinner at ARIA.

We were engaged for around 16 months to allow enough time for our family and friends from the UK and around Australia to plan holidays around our wedding on the Sunshine Coast. As a result our whole wedding was like a big happy reunion!

We chose to have our ceremony and reception at Weddings at Tiffanys in Maleny. We absolutely love spending time on the Sunshine Coast and we wanted a venue that could host both our ceremony and reception to makes things easy for our guests. As soon as we saw Tiffany’s we knew it was the place we wanted to get married – so much so we booked it on the spot. They offered an amazing locally sourced, ‘paddock to plate’ fine dining menu, exceptional customer service, a spectacular view of the Glasshouse Mountains as well as a gorgeous chapel and reception hall – really everything we could have dreamed of.

We sent out our Save the Dates quite early to our friends from overseas so they had plenty of time to plan. One of my bridesmaids has her own bespoke stationery business called Love My Type and she worked with us to design all our stationery and wedding invitations. They were absolutely gorgeous and really set the tone for our wedding – colourful, sophisticated, unique and most of all fun!

The night before the wedding I stayed at the beautiful Montville Lake Terrace with my family and some of my bridesmaids. It was such a lovely place to prepare for the wedding and has the most stunning view. I woke up very early on the morning of the wedding and was too excited to go back to sleep so I watched the sunrise over the lake with my sister which was a special moment I’ll always remember from the day. It was an absolutely perfect spring day – we honestly couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather.

Soon the lovely Khesanh and Erin from The Beauty Case arrived to do our hair and makeup. They were so much fun and really helped me to relax as the nerves had started to kick in. They also did a fantastic job on our hair and make-up – we all felt amazing on the day.

Before long, it was time to slip on my wedding dress! I wore the ‘Katelyn’ dress by Wendy Makin. I had first spied it in a magazine not long after getting engaged – I thought it was absolutely gorgeous but was certain that it wouldn’t suit me – plus it was strapless and had a sweetheart neckline and full skirt which was pretty much the exact opposite of what I thought I wanted. Funnily enough, when I put it on that all changed. I absolutely adored wearing it and am so glad that I chose to wear something a little less traditional and a lot of fun, whilst still being ‘bridal’.

I knew I wanted to wear pink wedding shoes even before I had decided on my dress. I found some pink suede strappy sandals online from Isola and bought them on a whim – they were perfect in every day and just the right height for dancing.

I didn’t focus too much on accessories on the day as my dress was already making quite a statement. I wore a diamanté hair piece that my parents gave me, some small diamanté drop earrings, a sparkling bracelet and of course my engagement ring.

We had a big bridal party – full of our best friends – and we wanted them all to feel comfortable and confident on the day. It was so wonderful having them all involved in our wedding – they made the whole day so much more fun.

I had always envisioned my bridesmaids would wear different styles and colours and after a bit of research we stumbled upon Alfred Sung. The girls tried on a bunch of different styles, each picking their favourite, and we went with colours that complimented the fabric of my dress. They all looked and felt so fantastic.

Tom wore a three-piece navy tuxedo with black lapels from MJ Bale and black patent shoes whilst our groomsmen looked dapper in navy suits from MJ Bale with black ties.

Tiffany’s Flowers arranged our wedding flowers and they managed to create the most beautiful romantic bouquets and flower arrangements that looked amazing with my wedding dress and the girls’ bridesmaid dresses. I couldn’t have been happier with how everything looked. They also created a stunning cake topper for our delicious three-tier wedding cake made by Cake Designs.

We were married at Tiffanys onsite chapel. It has a glass wall behind the altar, so you can see the beautiful Glasshouse Mountains. We wanted someone young and fun to officiate our ceremony and when we met Kath from Lovestruck Ceremonies we knew she was the right choice – we didn’t bother meeting any other celebrants. Kath worked with us to create a personal, relaxed, and intimate ceremony that was still loads of fun for our guests.

My Dad walked me down the aisle to Jose Gonzales’ ‘Stay Alive’ and when I got to Tom at the end I was so caught up in the moment I temporarily forgot that I was meant to hand my bouquet to my bridesmaids and kiss my dad goodbye. I am a pretty emotional person so our bridal party actually had a couple of bets as to who would tear up first but Tom beat me to it which I was pretty happy about. We wrote our own vows which were really hard to get through but it felt so wonderful to say them in front of all the people we love. My nerves completely disappeared during the ceremony and it felt like it was just the two us at times. It was simply magical.

After the ceremony we were both on such a high and after lots of hugs and kisses we left our guests to enjoy cocktails and canapes while we went to have our photos taken. This was one of the best parts of the day – cruising around with our bridal party in the ‘Something Blue’ and ‘Classic Red’ Deluxe Kombis. We cranked up the music, stood up out of the sun roof, had a few drinks, and generally got a bit silly.

One of the most memorable parts of the day was watching the spectacular sunset over the Glasshouse Mountains with our bridal party as we had photos taken. We were all having so much fun, popping champagne and doing silly poses – it was a magical afternoon.

We danced into the reception to ‘Happy’ by Pharrell – a last-minute decision because we’d forgotten to actually pick a song to walk in to. It was a fantastic night that had all the traditional reception things you expect at a wedding – speeches, laughter, cake cutting and lots of inappropriate dancing. The staff at Tiffanys were amazing – they put on an exceptional three course dinner and our guests were never without a drink in hand – needless to say lot of our guests were feeling a tad sorry for themselves the next day!

I can’t recommend our photographer and videographer enough! Matt from Mattography and Bec from BXCSmxth were both super relaxed and fun which made it so easy for them to capture all the happiness, emotion and frivolities of our wedding. We felt like we were having our photos and video taken by friends which made relaxing in front of the camera so much easier. It’s so special to have those memories recorded for us to keep forever.