Jacqui & Nick’s Classic Luminare Wedding

Jacqui & Nick

The beautiful rooftop scene of Jacqui and Nick’s classic Luminare wedding is only the start of what makes this a wedding to remember. The golden sunset, the heartfelt traditions, the amazing blooms and the so very fun food ideas that became not just a feature but a theme of the big day, this day is sure to take our idea of what a classic celebration may be and turn it on its head! Jacqui and Nick chose Daniella Melfi to capture  their gorgeous day.

With food a big love of both the bride and groom, it makes sense that even the way they met centred around their passion, the bride telling “Nick and I were brought together by our mutual love of food and sharing it with our loved ones. Our first few dates involved a “cook-off” of desserts (Nick even bought a KitchenAid for the occasion!) and picnics in the park. It was important to us to give the wedding our own touch, and we could think of nothing better but to have a food theme running through the occasion.”

The foodie touches started at the beginning with chocolate invitations designed by Santiago Sunbird. The bride telling “We commissioned a chocolate label from Santiago Sunbird and stuck them onto Lindt chocolate blocks. Each guest was given a chocolate block with all the details of our wedding. Being thin blocks, we were even able to mail these overseas, even as far as to London and New York! It was great fun doing this together and we managed not to eat too many blocks before the invitations were mailed out.”

The bride wore a gown by Noel Chu Atelier, remarking “I ended up wearing four different dresses on the day, all of which were so comfortable to wear – particularly given all the eating that was going on! The dress I got married in was tailored in Hong Kong by Noel Chu Atelier. In a four-hour session, Noel painstakingly positioned each piece of lace on my illusion neckline until I was happy. Noel works with lots of Australian brides and I would highly recommend her.”

The couple chose Luminare  for their wedding using Victoria Whitelaw as their floral designer. “We fell in love with Luminare at first sight. We loved the urban vibe and the amazing views over the city. The refurbishment of the venue just before the wedding was serendipitous and was completely the aesthetic we (particularly me!) had envisaged for our wedding. Our floral arrangements by Victoria Whitelaw fit in perfectly with the new gold accents and marble finishing. The Big Group were a dream to work with and were receptive to all of our ideas – and we had a lot.”

The bride had multiple gown changes, including a red lace dress from Lover the Label. She remembers “I also wanted some Australian designers to feature, and I wore a red Lover the Label dress for the tea ceremony and a Zimmermann dress to party the night away.”

“It was important for us to have a relaxed and seamless day. The Big Group were able to organise for all the wedding events to happen at Luminare. We had a traditional Chinese tea ceremony to reflect our heritage on the City Deck of Luminare. We switched to the Sky Deck for a Catholic ceremony afterwards, led by Nick’s previous headmaster. We were also able to have Nick’s talented brother on guitar!”

Even the guestbook was inspired by a love of food! “Our guestbook was the Rockpool Bar & Grill cookbook by Neil Perry, and guests were invited to write us messages next to recipes they loved. We even got Neil Perry to write us a wedding message! Next to the guestbook was our dessert buffet, which had our favourite treats. We also baked our own bonbonnieres – guests were treated with mini breakfast loaves of banana bread (my mum’s recipe) or orange poppy seed cake (Nick’s grandma’s recipe).”

“Our wedding cake was made by Cake Blooms, a business owned by one of my bridesmaids. The three tier cake featured handmade sugar flowers in ice cream cones. Along with cake and ice cream, we also had mini burgers and donuts served as midnight snacks to keep our guests going late into the night.”

The couple named each table after one of their favourite restaurants.

Of their photographer, the bride remembers “Daniella was amazing throughout the whole wedding process (right from our pre-wedding shoot through to the very last bite of gelato)! She made us feel comfortable in front of the lens and was really flexible about whatever we wanted on the day.”

Guests were spoilt with sweet treats – including homemade cookies. The bride shares “Instead of a first dance, we decided to have a “first bake”. Cooking together is what we love to do, so we pre-baked cookies which were warmed up to serve to our guests as the first thing we wanted to share with them as a married couple.”

The final sweet treat was a favourite of the groom. “Nick’s favourite dessert is ice cream, so we arranged for our favourite flavours of Gelato Messina to be served at our wedding.”

Jacqui and Nick worked with cinematographers Moon & Back to film their day, noting “Our first meeting with them was on the rooftop of their office over drinks. We instantly felt at ease and confident with them as our videographers, especially because they had shot at our venue a couple of times before (and with Daniella)!”

Congratulations Jacqui and Nick! Thank you for sharing the story of your day! Thank you also to Daniella Melfi for sharing today’s celebration with us!