Rosannah & Cam

There’s an overwhelming sense of true love as Rosannah shares the day she married her soul mate, Cam. The black tie affair in the gorgeous Kangaroo Valley included sophisticated touches and ended with a dance floor like none other. The magic was captured by Thomas Stewart on a beautiful day where the ‘starry night’ themed reception was even carried through to the sparkly sneakers the Bride and Bridesmaids wore to dance the night away! We send a  big congratulations and a lifetime of happiness to these wonderful love birds.

Cam and I started dating after bumping into each other one night in Sydney over 8 years ago. But we’d actually met a few times before then through our best friends who are brother and sister (and then were both in our bridal party and MCs of our wedding!).

In 2017 we planned a long weekend trip to explore beautiful Tasmania – a place that we both love. On our last night Cam suggested that we wake up early and catch the sunrise at Cradle Mountain the following day. As Cam is a rower and used to getting up ridiculously early, I didn’t think this was particularly suspicious. We drove for a couple of hours through rainy, dark and freezing weather, but when we arrived at Dove Lake, at the base of Cradle Mountain, it was perfectly still and we were the only ones there. During our walk around the lake as the sun came up, Cam got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. We had a couple of hours to ourselves before calling our family and friends who were all eagerly awaiting the exciting news.

Even before we were engaged Cam and I discussed how we’d like to get married somewhere we could have both the ceremony and reception. We wanted our guests to not have to worry about changing venues and for them to be able to enjoy the whole day with us.

The Barn at Melross in Kangaroo Valley in the Southern Highlands of NSW was actually the only wedding venue we looked at – we loved it immediately! Kangaroo Valley is a really special place for my family and I as my grandparents used to own a property down the road from Melross. So it really meant a lot to me to invite our family and friends to witness us get married in this spectacular part of NSW – many people had never been there before.

The Melross property is absolutely beautiful (including gorgeous cows!) and we loved that our bridal party and families could stay with us. Getting married outside of Sydney also enabled us to host a Friday dinner and Sunday breakfast for our guests to thank them for travelling the distance to be there for us on our special day.

Cam and I both enjoy getting dressed up and we loved the idea of having a black tie, formal wedding in a barn. Aside from keeping this in mind, most of the styling came about by simply choosing things that we really loved and suited our taste. I think if you consistently select things that you adore, rather than what you think you should choose, then everything will work well together and you’ll be delighted.

The barn was really a blank canvas which gave us a lot of freedom to decorate it to our style. To keep with the elegance of black tie, we opted for white table cloths and ‘starry night’ inspired chandeliers and fairy lights above with abundance of candles on the tables below.

We were also always on the lookout for little things we could do that would be unique or add a special touch. For example, I selected some of my favourite love poems and had them printed on the menus.

I’m also very lucky that my mum, sister and mother-in-law all have incredible style and were always on the lookout for ideas and inspiration. In particular, my mum thought of so many beautiful extra little touches which ended up making a huge difference – like extra foliage to put in gorgeous French pots, a huge champagne bucket filled with Moet on the bar and my family even planted 16 pots of lavender (as they are my favourite) and transported them down from Sydney to line our aisle.

When it came time to check out wedding dresses I had no idea where to start – it’s so overwhelming and such a special part of the planning!

Karen Willis Holmes was the first boutique I visited and not only are the dresses gorgeous, the entire experience was the best I had anywhere.  I loved trying on all the dresses in front of my mum and sister who helped me to narrow it down.

I love how my dress was elegant, flattering, had gorgeous lace and organza embellishments – and also the skirt meant I could eat and drink all I wanted on the day!

We were so lucky to work with INCREDIBLY talented and amazing people on our wedding day. Here are some of my favourites:

Photographer – Thomas Stewart. Tom is THE BEST – not only is he a phenomenal photographer, he’s also just an all-round great dude who is a pleasure to spend time with on your wedding day.

Wedding coordinator – Rhianna from Rhianna Smith Events coordinated our wedding day. She prepared the run sheet, got in touch with all our suppliers beforehand and then was there on the day to help set up and make sure everything ran smoothly. Rhianna is a total gun – she’s really experienced with a friendly and professional attitude, not to mention impeccable taste! From the moment we met, I knew I could trust her implicitly to make sure our dream day was perfect.

Florist – Rachel Uys from Lavande Designs. I absolutely love flowers and had a pretty good idea of what I wanted: pastel pinks, blues and greens, but seeing them all together blew me away. Not only is Rachel incredibly knowledgeable, she was also delightful to work with, making sure I was happy each step of the way. But I knew that whatever she did it would be perfect. For a special touch, she added lavender throughout as they are my favourite.

Videographer – Morelife films. We knew we wanted a video to capture all the different parts of our day, but we struggled to find a local videographer whose style we loved. (I watched a lot of strangers’ wedding videos!!) We came across Morelife on Instagram and adored their work. Then when we FaceTimed them for a chat we got to see that John and Elliot are also just really lovely guys. We had such a blast working with them and were such a pleasure to spend time with on the day. We absolutely LOVE our video: https://vimeo.com/301142818/91cb3602d4

Hair – It was important to me to feel like myself on my wedding day – and for me this meant having my hair in a ponytail! Not your traditional bridal style, but as a low maintenance hair girl, I just wanted to look like me. Josie from Morgan Hair co is INCREDIBLE. Not only was I absolutely delighted, but my mum and bridesmaids all were too.

Make up – Ash Quinn. Again – an absolute superstar. She really brought out the best in all of us with her natural style. She’s so talented and the make up lasted all day and into the night (and I may have left it on for the recovery breakfast too…)

Music – Lily Road. These guys were amazing. Greg sung solo for our ceremony and was exceptional. Greg was accompanied by a couple of other band members for the reception and you know you’ve got a good band when your guests can’t help but get up and dance between the entrée and main! And me personally, I didn’t leave the dance floor once when they started playing. One of my fondest memories of the day was witnessing every single one of our guests (including 80+ year old grandmas!) on the dance floor. We didn’t stop! And so many guests commented about how good they were.

Celebrant – Alex Lollback. Alex wrote a completely unique and personal ceremony – and it was perfect. She has a beautiful presence – relaxed and personable, which totally put us at ease.

Wedding Bands – Affinity Diamonds.

Bridesmaids dresses – I really wanted my bridesmaids to feel comfortable on the day so they each wore their own black dresses and got to choose their hair and make up. I loved how they each wore something they loved, have worn before and may wear again, and each got to shine as individuals.

Wedding shoes – Just as with the ponytail, I didn’t feel that traditional ‘bridal shoes’ were really my style. I was meandering through David Jones one lunch break when the red and pearl Stuart Weitzman block heels caught my eye – I just loved them. The block heel was super comfortable (good for traipsing through paddocks) and I’ve already worn them loads of times since our wedding. I love how you can just see a hint of them in the photos and video. I changed into really cute Kate Spade x Keds white sparkly sneakers, and bought my bridesmaids gold sparkly sneakers, for dancing!