Stacy & Danielle

Stacy and Danielle married in a colourful Culburra Beach wedding, bright with vibrant flowers, an epic flashdance tribute and attended by their dearly loved friends and family. Penny Ryan Photography captured the beachside celebrations.

A setup misadventure led to Stacy and Danielle falling in love! Stacy remembers, ”Dan’s old friend Patricia was outraged that two of her good friends, Dan and another friend Ali, were approaching 40 and still single. So she set them up on a date. They liked each other but there was no spark. So Ali sent Dan a picture of me and a message that basically said ‘what about her?’, to which Dan said, ‘yeah she’s a bit all right’. So we had a blind date at Yulli’s in Surry Hills and there was definitely spark. A series of great dates later (Tony Windsor at Giant Dwarf, Grace Jones at Vivid) and we were in love!”

Both bride’s chose outfits that felt intrinsically them, embracing colour and making their own traditions. Stacy shares, ”I had a suit made by Shane Ave and a bow scarf by a beautiful San Francisco designer C.Banning Accessories, and Danielle wore a dress by Diane Von Furstenburg. We both chose our outfits based on how we wanted to feel on the day. Our planner Mon from Hoorah Events was extraordinary and has since become a friend. Not only did she make the planning really easy and the venue and ceremony space look amazing, she was incredibly helpful to us during the event itself. Every time we saw her over the course of the night she was doing something for someone – holding a baby so a guest could eat, making an uncle a cup of tea. She even picked up a few stragglers on the main street of Culburra late at night and drove them to their Airbnb based on a vague description.”

On the waters edge at Tilbury Cove, seated on pink and orange floor cushions and surrounded by their family, the bride’s made it official. They tell, ”It was emotional and, due to the process we had gone through to achieve marriage equality in Australia, unashamedly political. Our celebrant Nicky Solomon asked if we wanted her to talk about politics, and we definitely did. She also talked a lot about love, and there were definitely a few tears. Our nephews welcomed our guests to the country and our sister in law Deb welcomed Stacy into the family in traditional language. Our celebrant made everyone take a vow to get very loose at our party afterwards – and they did! Our children Remy and Edie and Dan’s parents walked us down the aisle to our guests singing us in to a rousing rendition of ‘We Belong’ by Pat Benatar.”

The location of both ceremony and reception was a spot dear to Stacy and Danielle’s hearts, as they have a holiday home there. They share, ”We got married at Culburra Beach, so everyone travelled some distance to get there and stayed for the weekend. We just wanted everyone to have a good time. We took advantage of the beautiful setting and the Pacific Ocean as our constant backdrop and just added heaps of colour.

Danielle and Mon from Hoorah Events really went with the idea of ‘more is more’. Our guests attended the ceremony then we all walked over to the reception venue together and had a grazing table and drinks outside, then a sit down dinner and crazy dancing. The Nowra Culburra Surf Life Saving Club is a fantastic venue with amazing views and plenty of space. It’s a real blank canvas, and you can hire it for the weekend so there is no pressure on bumping in or out. They were also very easy to work with and accommodated our caterers and planners with no stress.”

Our wedding planner, Hoorah Events, organised all of our decorations including flowers – we told them to go bright and they did the rest. They use all local talent for their weddings and they are amazing. A great dance floor was a definite requirement for both of us, we both love dancing at our friends weddings and this was a high priority. We thought we needed to set the scene for this so we went pretty nuts, considering neither of us are particularly amazing dancers.

We did a tribute to Flashdance to the song ‘Maniac’ by Michael Sembello, that had welding, a symbolic waterfall and lots of running on the spot. Our daughter introduced us by saying, “Prepare to cringe your faces off!” Our caterer Bumpy Road Catering & Events was also really great, they were new at the time so we took a punt on them and the food was really delicious and they were incredibly nice. Stacy and Edie made our wedding cake which was a surprising success, considering they’d never made one before. And we have known Penny Ryan Photography for years and were always keen to use her. She is a wonderful friend and an amazing photographer.”

Remembering their favourite moments from the day, Stacy tells, ”Dan’s dress was just beautiful – I fell in love with her all over again when I saw her in it for the first time.” Danielle recalls, ”I got a bit emotional walking down the aisle with our guests singing. As I pulled myself together I just loved holding Stacy’s hand and looking up to see all of the gorgeous faces of our friends and family. We are both in our 40’s so we’ve been to heaps of weddings. We knew that we wanted good food, good champagne, good dancing and no drama. We overachieved on all of those things.”

Thank you to our gorgeous brides for sharing your spectacular wedding day, and congratulations! Thank you also to Penny Ryan Photography for your beautiful images!