I have always adored endless colour at a wedding and, for Hannah and Tom, the rainbow colour scheme of this South Australian wedding day began with Hannah’s bridal cape. The bride’s mother carefully applied by hand – over a year – thousands of coloured sequins. And, if that doesn’t blow you away, wait until you see the stunning forest setting for the ‘I dos’. This is a day that is all about what feels good, and with Evan Bailey behind the camera, it’s an absolute honour to share it.

It was always going to be full of colour as Hannah’s occupation set the scene: “It was a relaxed day with a pretty eclectic style. I’m an art teacher so I had a pretty strong vision of how the day would turn out. We had a food truck come for food and a ‘help yourself’ bar with relaxed seating and rugs on the grass outside,” she explains. She continues, “We really wanted to showcase the best that South Australia has to offer at our wedding as we were lucky enough to have all of Tom’s direct family and some friends attend the wedding from England. We wanted the day to have great food, great booze and great people. Oh, and a party that went all night!”

The bride gifted each of her bridesmaids with a custom embroidery piece.

Hannah chose a goddess-like cream silk dress, to be adorned with a sequined cape with multicoloured sparkles, from Asos. She tells, “I bought my dress online (hello, ASOS!) about 18 months before the wedding. I bought it and thought it would be OK to start off with and I could always look for others closer to the date if I needed. However, I ended up really loving that dress and it was just perfect! It was a cream satin kimono cut dress with a deep ‘V’ back and a small train. The crowning jewel to my dress, however, was my 4.5m hand sequined cape that my mum spent a year making. This was stitched to the shoulders on the back and snipped off later in the evening when it got too heavy!”

Hannah added a sense of tradition to her look for the day. “I wanted to do the whole ‘something old, something new…’ tradition so wore my grandmother’s topaz ring and Tom’s grandmother’s bracelet as my something old, my gorgeous Isabella May pearl earrings were my something new, my stick on bra was actually borrowed from one of my bridesmaids as my something borrowed, and I painted the nail on my ring finger ‘Ipswich blue’ (Tom’s favourite football team from England). Also, the tablecloth on our signing table was my great-great Grandmother’s and was on my parent’s signing table when they got married.”

Guests were greeted at the ceremony with a colourful paper arch made by the couple themselves. “We made two huge paper decoration archways to walk through at the entrance of the forest and the hall. All of this was done in the three days before the wedding. We were so lucky to have so much help from family and friends, we could never have done it without them all.”

The bouquet, was of course as bright as could be. Hannah and Tom worked with Poppy Lane Weddings & Events. “I chose bougainvillea flowers for my bouquet as I have always loved how bright and beautiful their colours are. Those with lots of lush greens to match the greenery hanging inside that we made. The bridesmaids all had white flowers as they were all wearing their own choice of outfit in varying colours. The random small posies dotted around in the hall were a mixture of brights just for pops of colour.”

With a country hall in mind for their reception (Hindmarsh Valley Hall), Hannah and Tom asked the owners of the neighbouring private property if they could hold their ceremony there.

Hannah chose ‘I Love You’ by The Bees to walk down the aisle to, alongside her parents. “It’s such a beautiful song and we’ve always loved it.”

Hannah and Tom worked with celebrant Amy Harrison on their ceremony. “We wanted to really embrace the beautiful environment that we were lucky enough to be in, so kept the ceremony fairly simple. Our celebrant, Amy, did such an amazing job before and on the day. We had my younger brother read ‘The Apache Wedding Prayer’ and Tom’s younger sister read ‘God Only Knows’ by The Beach Boys.”

Hannah and Tom made sure to fill their ceremony with plenty of special details. “We made sure to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land we stood on before our ceremony began, the confetti was all hand punched from the gum leaves in the forest as we didn’t want to leave any litter on the private property (this took all year before the wedding), my Aunt made our wedding cake, and Tom worked for months on our music playlists – he really captured the mood of the day and then the party at night so well!”

It was a short hop, skip and a jump to the country hall reception at Hindmarsh Valley Hall. “The hall for the reception was really a blank slate – we were able to do pretty much anything we liked to it. So we took advantage of that and absolutely filled it to the brim!” remembers Hannah.

In keeping with the handmade vibe of the day, Hannah and Tom styled and decorated the wedding themselves. “We brought in all the furniture, pot plants, lighting, greenery installations (all made and hung the day before the wedding), sound system, bar and cheese platters (the cheese was a wedding present from Erin who brought it all in from France – as you do!) Tom put together playlists for the day and night that were played through Spotify and the massive speakers we hired.”

Of their photographer, Hannah raves, “I was lucky enough to go uni with Evan and have always loved his photography. When we got engaged, Evan had just started to do wedding photography and we booked him pretty much straight away! Evan was amazing throughout the day, photographing Tom and the boys in the morning, as well as me getting ready, the whole ceremony and the party afterwards. He was like some kind of photography ninja and took such amazing photos.”

Guests were served a roving feast by Mullygrub Food Truck.

Loved ones are, of course, what Hannah and Tom treasure most about their wedding. “Having our family and friends all there to celebrate with us was such an amazing experience! So many people travelled such huge distances to be there, it was incredibly humbling. Having little moments together of just the two of us throughout the day was so special. Playing air guitar to the Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’ in the middle of the dance floor and then having everyone dancing to Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ is a great memory too!”

“The two days before the wedding were rainy, windy and only about 15 degrees! Thankfully, we did enough anti-rain dances that the actual day was beautiful and the sun even came out. One of our friends drove us and Evan the photographer up to the top of a nearby hill to get some pretty epic, moody shots later in the evening. We’re so glad he was able to help as they’re some amazing shots,” remembers the bride.

And then? It was time for dancing! “We danced to ‘Need Your Love So Bad’ by Fleetwood Mac – such love,” shares Hannah.

 

Congratulations Hannah and Tom! Thank you for sharing your beautiful day with us. Thank you also to Evan Bailey for sharing today’s beautiful wedding photographs.