Kylie & Jono

Putting a modern spin on a rustic Byron Bay hinterland wedding, Kylie and Jono celebrated with simple beauty all around. A handmade flower crown bar, delicious vegan meals and rogue paw prints from the guests of honour made this day one to remember! Figtree Pictures captured the celebration.

The bride and groom met while both working for the same dance company in Sydney, but both had partners. Kylie remembers, ”I left the company for about a year and then when I came back we were both single and a few months later at a mutual friend’s birthday bash everything changed.” Jono proposed with an engagement ring from Etsy, with Kylie sharing, ”Jono surprised me when he offered to buy this diamond shaped geometric ring that I had been eyeing off but was too poor (as a student) to buy. When it arrived in the mail he high-jacked it from the package and proposed! No big fancy and expensive proposal just a real and honest moment of love.”

A handmade wedding gown was worn by the bride, in a simple and clean cut design. Kylie tells, ”Jono’s mum made me my dream dress. She is not a professional seamstress but is very creative and complete whizz with the sewing machine. I really wanted a simple yet stylish dress that I would be comfortable in. I showed her a picture of what I liked and then armed with a very basic dress pattern from the 80’s she went ahead and somehow created this incredible dress. It fitted me perfectly and the stretchy crepe fabric was an absolute dream to wear the entire day. So comfortable!” The groom ore a three piece suit from Politix,with a bow tie.

Location, locatio, location! The venue set the scene for Kylie and Jono’s celebration, with the Byron Bay hinterland and sweeping country fields surrounding them. The bride tells, ”We were married at Byron View Farm. We fell in love with the venue the moment we saw it and it certainly didn’t disappoint! We chose this venue for its amazing view and beautiful surrounds as well as for its dog friendliness. I think our dogs had as much of a good time as we did which was really important to us. Our wedding was a relaxed outdoor garden wedding. We didn’t really have any set style or theme. We really wanted the beautiful venue to be the star of the show and so chose everything else around complimenting that.”

Naming the ceremony as the highlight of the entire day, it took place on the lawn, overlooking the hinterland views. Kylie shares, ”Even though we were surrounded by all our closest family and friends, neither of us recall seeing anyone else there except each other. We wanted our ceremony to just be a celebration of love and that’s exactly what it was. Our ceremony was also the first time meeting for our families and so we really wanted it to feel relaxed and not too formal. We were really picky with our celebrant for this exact reason and we are so glad we were because Benjamin Carlyle did an awesome job not only on keeping the vibe of our ceremony true to us but also on including our guests and making them feel at ease. And of course, our most responsible dog got the honour of bearing the rings. My dad walked me down the aisle to Sarah Archers live rendition of ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’.”

In tones of white and sage, with natives featuring heavily, the florals complemented the soothing palette of the day superbly. The bride tells, ”We found Poppy and Fern through Instagram and since we loved her style, we just left our flower selection up to her. The only real request were proteas as they’re my favourite! We just wanted seasonal mostly white natives with lots of greenery, for which our florist did a lovely job. Of course, floral wreaths for the dogs was a must!”

Figtree Pictures caught the dreamy, rustic day and all the detail. Kylie shares, ”The whole experience was easy, right from the very first email, all the way through to the beautiful photos at the end. Dan, our photographer, was truly amazing. He really put us at ease from the very first moment and blended right in with the wedding. My sister actually hugged him thinking that he was a guest! Nothing was too much trouble and he was even able to capture our fur-children perfectly.”

Byron Bay Weddings had every detail under control, down to weather patrol! The bride remembers, ”We loved all our vendors but I think a special mention should go to Byron Bay Weddings. They made sure we didn’t have to stress about anything on our wedding day and that we could just enjoy ourselves. Some substantial unexpected rain rolled in but they managed to organise everything so that we could still have our ceremony and dinner outside like we had planned, narrowly escaping the downpour. We had the rest of our reception on the wrap around veranda of the on-site cottage where were we also staying which turned out to be really lovely and intimate. I didn’t learn until the next day that the staff were there physically holding down the blinds on the veranda through this crazy storm while we were obliviously dancing the night away. And when the end of the night came and we were dreading if we would ever make it to bed with the mess of having a wedding on your veranda, they had the place cleaned up and cleared out in the blink of an eye!”

Sitting outdoors, with festoon lighting overhead, the romantic scene was set for Kylie and Jono’s reception to begin. They share, ”We are both vegan and so even though we didn’t want to force any of our values onto our guests, we also wanted to be able to share this side of us with them. We also really wanted to be able to have a feasting type dinner as that was how we would more naturally share meals with our family and friends. Figtree Restaurant did an amazing job of creating an almost entirely vegan (and gluten free) feasting menu for our wedding that satisfied even the most carnivorous of the bunch. We did decide to have just one chicken dish in there though which was certainly more than enough.”

Creating some gorgeous touches for the day made each moment of the wedding special. Kylie tells, ”Jono made and hand-painted all of the signs. We also DIY’d the menus and place cards as well set up a DIY photobooth and flower crown bar. For the photo booth we had an iPad on a tripod that connected to a mini photo printer over Bluetooth and supplied some props which we brought on Etsy and printed ourselves. For the flower crown station, we enlisted the help of my mum and sister to pre-make a stack of bases so that guests could just jump straight in and attach their flowers and go. For this, we sourced the flowers ourselves from a local flower market in Brisbane.”

We all know that some of the best moments of a wedding can be unplanned ones! Kylie remembers, ”Our dogs were a big part of our wedding day from beginning to end. They sat perfectly in the front row throughout the ceremony, mingled with all the guests during the reception and even joined us for our photo shoot. They were literally having the best time! And when the rain started pouring down and everyone had to move quickly to our plan B, they got just a little too excited. Yoshi decided to use me as a springboard and launch himself off my dress to zoomie back around, leaving the most perfect single muddy paw print front and centre on my dress! Jono and I spent the next little while in the bathroom trying to rectify the mishap. Our first dance was the acoustic version of ‘Say You Won’t Let Go’ by Matt Johnson and Jaclyn Davies. We semi-choreographed a dance which was a mixture of kizomba and rumba dance styles with a little bit of drunken sway thrown in for good measure and it was perfect.”

Thank you to our gorgeous bride and groom for sharing your beautiful wedding day with us, and congratulations! Thank you also to Figtree Pictures and Woven Motion for your superb imagery.