Genevieve & Chris
The magic of a wedding in the country never fails to get my heart excited and the stunning black tie country wedding of Genevieve and Chris, which the couple held on a family farm, allowed them that mix of elegant, chic sense of style with the beautiful country backdrop of hay bales and machinery sheds. Nikki McCrone Photography capturing every photos we’re sharing today.
The bride, who wore a crystal crown and stunning long sleeve wedding gown, tells us the story of how the pair came to be. “We met at Falls Festival in Lorne for New Years 09/10 – our closest friends still tease us today about holding hands on the first day we met.”
The bride found her Houghton wedding gown at The Bridal Atelier. She remembers “I loved the experience and actually found my dress on the first visit. They were so helpful and a wonderful team to work with. After trying on about 8 different dresses I hadn’t found one that I loved so my consultant Candy asked if she could make a selection, she chose a Houghton NYC design and I fell in love with it! It is elegant and classy and had long sleeves with a boat neck, a silk column gown with open cut-out back and back slit. I paired it with a tulle skirt overlay, with a train which I wore for the ceremony and took off for the reception.”
Genevieve walked down the aisle to the classic “All You Need Is Love” by The Beatles.
Robyn Ferrier officiated the wedding, the bride remembering “Our ceremony was all about love, it’s all you need. We wanted our friends and family to laugh with us and even shed some happy tears, which they did. It was a clear celebration of our lives together so far and the future to come. It was very relaxed, we even had the farm chickens roaming around the garden. We had 2 readings, one an extract from novel Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey. We felt it was a wonderful piece that touched on what we wanted our wedding to be “one of those sweet, significant moments that leaves a footprint in your mind. A photograph couldn’t ever tell it’s story. It’s like something you have to live to understand”. We also had ‘People Are Like Cities’ by Hilary T Smith – it’s a beautiful quote about finding love and the best bits of each other, even the bits you might not are beautiful yourself.”
“We used my sister and brother-in-law’s farm, just out of Watchem in country Victoria. We had the ceremony on the back lawn, where we set up a random mix of seats and church pews and then had wheat coloured market umbrellas for shade. We made sure that our celebrant touched on our very first meeting in ‘our story’ within the ceremony. We love that story so much that we wanted to share it again.”
Genevieve tells “I loved the wedding planning! I work in events so to me it was like the best job I’d ever been given! I think my favourite part of the planning was probably the week right before, the energy and excitement that started to rise was just amazing, it was finally time for the wedding! We also decided to paint my sister and brother in law’s house, that was a great weekend, my sister was so happy that her house was getting painted and it was a huge day of bonding with both our families.”
Guests gathered in the machinery shed for the reception, Genevieve, who created a lot of the wedding decor herself, tells “So much of our wedding was DIY! We even cooked the meat for dinner! As we had a campground at the farm for a lot of our guests, we put together little survival packs for each camper, a little bag with water, Berocca, Panadol, ear plugs and an eye mask. As it was hot we also made little fans things for the ceremony, a little card with the bridal party names on sticks so people could fan themselves. All of our flowers/decorations on the tables we did ourselves, we had a lot of signs pointing people in the right direction which I painted on some scrap wood. We made a stage for the band and light covers to hang from the ceiling. We made the arch that we stood under in the ceremony. So yep, we did a lot of DIY.”
Of their photographer, Genevieve remarks “We used the wonderful Nikki, of Nikki McCrone Photography and we couldn’t have been happier with her in every way! Nikki and I share a very special mutual friend and have know each other for a few years now. Chris and I were looking for someone who knew us as a couple so we had someone with a great understanding of our personalities and what we like. Nikki was exactly that, she was so professional leading up to and on the day. We love our photos; she’s done an amazing job capturing so many little things as well as the big ones!”
Genevieve remembers ” Our first dance was to Vance Joy ‘Fire and the Flood’ – we chose this song really because of the line in it “Anywhere I go there you are” this really resonated with us as throughout our relationship Chris has worked away a lot. Even in the lead up to the wedding he was FIFO and this song was just a beautiful reminder that we’re everywhere together. We had lessons for our dance and on the night that all just went out the door and we basically forgot the whole thing! There was lots of laughing through the dance and in the end we were like let’s just end it! That’s actually one of my favourite memories, it was so funny.”
“One story would have to be when at the end of the night the band played Horses by Daryl Braithwaite – a great song to get the crowd dancing – all of our guests formed a huge circle around us and sang along while we slow danced in the middle – I bawled my eyes out the whole time – it was the most incredible moment between the two of Chris and I, with our family and friends in a gigantic circle around us there was an amazing energy in the air.”
Congratulations on your marriage Genevieve and Chris! Thank you for sharing your day with us! Thank you also to Nikki McCrone Photography for sharing today’s celebration.
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