Nicole & Alex
Nicole and Alex surprised their family and friends by tying the knot at their son’s first birthday party! Their wedding was intimate (80 people crammed into their lounge room and decking!), brief, confetti-filled and super special. There to capture the happy occasion was photographer Dave Le Page. Below, Nicole and Alex share their love story, and how their wedding day unfolded.
We met on Instagram many years ago, we were just following each other with minimal interaction…
At one stage it was suggested that we do a Murakami book swap when I Alex saw Nicole was reading the latest volume but unfortunately nothing was actually exchanged. It wasn’t until two years later when me, a hungover Nicole was on my way to Subway for a diet coke breakfast that I recognized Alex as he rode by on his bike in VERY skinny jeans when I pointed at him and yelled out, “Hi”. He was even cuter in real life and I decided to message him to ask him out on a date.
We organically fell in love but didn’t realise just how serious it was until one time we had a dumb disagreement, and as I was laying in my bed looking up at the ceiling I received a message from Alex.
Alex: I had never expected to tell Nicole I loved her for the first time over a text…but I did.
Nicole: As I lay freezing in my bungalow, I knew then that I loved this guy too.
By the end of this year, we knew that we were in it forever. After an interesting trip to Vietnam where we didn’t eat a lot and spent most of the time being hangry and sad, we stopped off to NZ for a week. Things took an upward turn once we filled our bellies with some good vegan food, which made us happy once again.
Alex says: We had spent everyday together for a month and the thought of going back to living separately didn’t feel right so by the end of their time in NZ, I asked Nicole to move in with me. Having her around everyday made everything feel so much better and they both fell in love just a little more each day.
The wedding was planned as a surprise under the masquerade of our son’s first birthday party. Only two out of the 80 guests actually knew we were getting married, we didn’t even tell our parents!
The ceremony and party were at our house. We took photos later on at the Botanical Gardens in the CBD and a nice beach location on the Mornington Peninsula.
I don’t often dress up but wanted to go all out for my wedding. Because it was a party I wanted something with a nice party vibe and I LOVE gold and sequins. I found it online and couldn’t find anywhere to try my dress on because there are only a few places that were stocking Alex Perry at the time and none of the Melbourne locations had this particular dress so I just took a chance and purchased it online without trying it on first. I was pretty hesitant but so glad I did it because it really was my dream dress.
Alex wore a custom made suit from Oscar Hunt, a red velvet tuxedo jacket with black pants.
We didn’t want anything too formal, at the end of the day we were hijacking our son’s birthday so we wanted our ceremony to be quick and fun. We didn’t have any readings or anything like that. Our celebrant spoke about how we met and our story so far then we said our vows that we wrote ourselves, then our guests threw confetti all over us before eating pizza.
The flowers were chosen around the colour theme for the party (dark green, burnt orange, mustard and teal). Given the situation with the party, we opted for several small arrangements set throughout the house, matching to the bouquet and buttonholes. Orange and yellow flowers are the best flower colours so it was a no brainer really.
We have a turntable and a big vinyl collection. The vinyl we had on the turntable and on display was ‘Kind of Blue’ by Miles Davis, which was the album we had playing when Miles was born.
What made the day most special was everyone attending came to celebrate the milestone of our son turning one, with the added bonus of us getting married.
Our photographer Dave Le Page is an extremely talented wedding and portrait photographer. He is incredibly lovely, super easy to work with and above all, a genuine guy. He made us feel relaxed and we had a lot of fun taking our wedding photos after the ceremony. He was creative and we really enjoyed working together.
Our advice for soon to be newlyweds is to do what is going to make you happy, don’t feel the need to conform or follow the standard plan for what a wedding should look like.
Awesome inspiration for the day. These photos are amazing. Thanks for sharing!