Amy & Adam
If I have a soft spot for any kind of wedding, it’s…all of them. But it’s also the weddings where the couple pours every little bit of their hearts into their day. It’s the ones where they take what is important to them and they make sure every part of their day reflects that. It’s the beautiful locations, the warm hugs, the emotional moments that are what I adore and today’s beautiful, low-key Sydney wedding at Kuring-Gai Motor Yacht Club is all that and more.
Captured with effortless beauty by Kevin Lue, Amy and Adam describe their wedding as a, “very relaxed style, native Australian theme and very fun atmosphere – there was lots of laughter and lots of jokes!” And it was full to the brim with handmade details, right down to the wedding cake made by the groom’s mum.
It seemed only fitting for this couple, who knew pretty early on they were forever. In fact, it was only 11 months into their relationship when Adam popped the question. Amy tells their story, “Adam and I decided to go to Japan for 10 days, about 11 months into our relationship. We often joked that we should probably wait until we were dating for 12 months before getting engaged – otherwise, people would think we’re crazy and rushing into it. Anyway, I noticed Adam packed a suit in his luggage and I jokingly texted my mum ‘He’s packing a suit – is he going to propose?!’. Adam assured me that he always packed one set of nice clothes so that he didn’t feel under-dressed if we ended up going to a nice restaurant. He booked us into a fancy traditional-style, Michelin-star restaurant in Kyoto. When we were having dessert and drinking matcha tea in a private dining room overlooking a beautiful Japanese garden, he gushed something about wanting me in his future. Then I said ‘What? Are you proposing?’ and he said ‘I’m bending on my knee but you probably can’t see it because we’re sitting so low anyway’. Then I clicked, started bawling my eyes out and said ‘yes!’ I spent the rest of the trip researching Japanese jewellers so that we could find a unique Japanese engagement ring on our last day in Tokyo.”
The bride-to-be found her gown by chance at a Made With Love sample sale, remembering, “Not long after our engagement, I decided to go to a sample sale one Sunday afternoon. I tried on the last Made with Love ‘Frankie’ dress in the shop and it fit perfectly. I figured I wasn’t going to find a cheaper dress so I bought it 10 minutes later. I had it sitting in my wardrobe for months! Then Adam’s mum introduced me to her best friend – a retired dressmaker, who kindly agreed to add sleeves to the dress for me. She wrote me a beautiful letter after she finished, saying that she’d had such a pleasure working with me on the dress and couldn’t possibly charge me. I ignored her and sent her a gift voucher for a fancy high tea for two. Then my mum made the belt that went around my waist.”
Amy and Adam wanted plenty of Australian natives, so found their flowers from East Coast Wildflowers. “We were keen to keep to a tight budget for the wedding as we’d just bought a house and didn’t need anything fancy. Adam and I decided to buy all our native Australian flowers from East Coast Wildflowers at Sydney Flower Markets and put them together ourselves with the help of my mum and her sisters (who had dabbled in floristry in the past). We visited the flower markets a few months before the wedding to see if we were up for the challenge of buying our own flowers. Then we went a week before the wedding to get an idea of the types of flowers that would be available. We had the venue the day before the wedding – so we went to the flower markets on Friday morning at 5am and I ended up making my own bouquet and the flowers for each of the tables. My mum and I decorated the wedding arch in flowers and Adam’s sister made the corsages. Team effort!”
Amy and Adam were married at the beautiful Kuring-Gai Motor Yacht Club, Amy remembering, “We chose our venue on the same day I bought my wedding dress – it was the second venue we looked at. We knew we wanted something in or near Kuring-Gai National Park because that’s where we met and spent so much time getting to know one another. The area has such a special significance for us. We looked at one venue in Akuna Bay that was so fancy – too fancy. Then we drove to the Yacht Club in Cottage Point – it was so relaxed, so laid back, so much more us. We had our ceremony on the lawn and the reception in the Yacht Club.”
The bride walked down the aisle with her parents to the live sounds of Stephanie Grace. She tells, “Steph Grace sang a beautiful acoustic version of ‘To Build a Home’ by Cinematic Orchestra. She learned it just for the wedding. We chose the song after listening to it over and over during our first holiday together in Tasmania. My mum and dad walked me down the aisle – it was just going to be my dad, but then I convinced my mum to join us, literally one minute before the ceremony started as she was about to go off to the venue to get a seat for herself!”
Amy and Adam were married by a dear friend Amanda. “We just wanted the ceremony to be relaxed and fun – and we definitely achieved that. Our celebrant was one of my closest work friends – Amanda. She moved to Sweden about three months before the wedding but she was determined to come back to be our celebrant. She was incredible because she knew all about how Adam and I met and threw in heaps of jokes during the ceremony. Adam and I kept making comments about what she was saying throughout the ceremony, so it all felt really informal and amusing. There were lots and lots of laughs. Adam’s two sisters did a reading each – Amanda read ‘I Carry Your Heart’ by E.E. Cummings and Bec read ‘Love is a Temporary Madness’ by Louis de Bernieres. My two best friends from university, Cara and Georgina, read ‘To Love is not to Possess’ by James Kavanaugh. I won’t lie; we found the readings by Googling ‘unique wedding readings’ one rainy afternoon. We selected a shortlist of three each, and then settled on our three favourites.
Amy skipped bridesmaids, instead, she enlisted her brother to stand by her side. “Every time I thought about my future wedding, I freaked out about the idea of bridesmaids. Most of my closest female friends live interstate or overseas, so the idea of shopping for dresses and planning a hen’s seemed like a logistical nightmare. So I decided not to have any bridesmaids. Instead, my younger brother Tom was my ‘bridesman’. I also had three flower girls – Luke and Heather’s daughter Cecelia, my cousin’s daughter Tilly, and Adam’s 12 year old niece Isabella (who was the flower girl ‘boss’). Cecelia and Tilly were adorably naughty the whole day! Adam asked his two closest friends to be his ‘co-best men’ (he was best man at both their weddings and couldn’t choose between them) – Luke (my boss) and his old friend Mike. We then agreed that he should ask his other best mate Chappy to be a groomsman – that way, one groomsman could stand next to Tom and the co-best men could stand next to Adam during the wedding ceremony. His other best mate Tristan was the MC.”
Amy and Adam chose Kevin Lue to photograph their day, remembering, “Kevin Lue was the most relaxed, easy-going photographer to work with. He arrived about two hours earlier than he needed to so that he could get a feel for the venue and surroundings. He then took turns following my family around as we got ready and then Adam’s family. He got the most wonderfully candid shots and we had such a wonderful time hanging out with him!”
While the couple chose plenty of traditional elements, there were also plenty they just couldn’t include. Amy tells, “My mum is all into the ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’ so she told me I had to wear a blue garter – I put it on for five minutes and told her I couldn’t bear to wear it for any longer!”
Guests enjoyed cocktail hour thanks to The Fizz Fellas. Amy says, “We also decided to get ‘The Fizz Fellas’ to supply espresso martinis and Aperol spritz on tap out of their Prosecco van at the wedding. I found out about them because they use Pablo & Rusty coffee beans (my local café). They were SUCH A HIT. We got through 25 litres of espresso martinis throughout the night. People couldn’t stop raving about them!”
Adam adds his own take on his favourite part of the wedding. “There are a lot of positive stories in the prep for the wedding, what better way to get the in-laws to know each other than by sitting in a circle puffing up pom pom balls. And lots of those moments of family helping out, my mum making the cake, your (Amy’s) bro and dad making us all dinner, your mum helping with the flowers, my dad bringing the arch, all that sort of thing.”
“Adam’s mum organized a wedding cake topper which featured me, Adam and our dog Buddy! It was gorgeous. Unfortunately, he wasn’t part of the day as he gets way too excited around large crowds, but little touches like that really made it feel like he was there!”
Guests gathered inside for dinner and dancing. All the decorations were also made by the couple themselves, who explain, “We DIYed almost everything! We hired out our wedding venue, but they only supplied the chairs and tables. We had to supply everything else. We arranged caterers and bar staff; we bought decorations, table cloths and fairy lights for the reception; we bought fabric and cut our own table runners; we made our own invites (Adam is a photoshop whizz!), wedding ceremony order of service leaflets, menus; we made all the flower arrangements, bouquets and corsages; Adam’s mum made the cake with the help of her best friend and her granddaughter; we set up the wedding venue the day before the wedding; we packed up the wedding venue at 7am the morning after the wedding. We had amazing support from our family and although it was a lot of work, it ensured that the wedding was exactly the way we wanted it.”
The speeches? Without a doubt, a highlight of the night. “Our MC Tristan decided to surprise everyone with a Powerpoint style quiz at the start of the reception called ‘Do you deserve to be here’. Apparently, at every birthday event, Adam and his mates would design a similar quiz to test how much everyone knew about the birthday boy. In this case, it was the most hilarious quiz about how much everyone knew about Adam and I. For example, there was a question ‘Where are Amy and Adam going on honeymoon’ – then he flashed up beautiful photos of Italy, France and the Maldives. The last photo was of some dogs eating rubbish out of a tip in Albania. The answer was Albania. Another question was ‘What movie did Adam watch every Valentines Day when he was single?’. The answer was Edward Scissorhands. The quiz really set the tone for the rest of the evening. We were all in stitches of laughter.”
The newlyweds chose a Lily Allen song for their first dance. “We chose the Lily Allen version of ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ originally by Keane. Again, we googled ‘unique first dance songs’! Adam is an amazing dancer so he wrote out a dance routine and made me practice every.single.day.”
The couple planned every detail together says the bride. “It was a wonderful opportunity for Adam and I to bond. Each weekend, we’d cross more and more things off our to-do list – and by the end of each weekend we’d feel a real sense of accomplishment…and excitement!”
A big congratulations to the newlyweds! Thank you for sharing your beautiful day with us. Thank you also to Kevin Lue for his stunning photography of the day.
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