After putting together this feature for Sarah & Ashley’s romantic Kangaroo Valley wedding shot by Luke Fletcher and Zain Kruyer there isn’t a dry eye left in the PDW team… A beautiful wedding with not only all the stunning rustic styling elements for every nature lover out there but one that invokes all emotions that should be felt on a perfect wedding day. The joy, the tears, the all-out crazy fun, and the sentimental moments that will stay with them forever. Sarah remembers their beautiful day… 

Ashley and I are high school sweethearts! We met in the school uniform shop in 2010, where my mum worked at the time, and we have been together now for 8 years. 

We had some truly wonderful and memorable moments throughout our day. Our mums wearing matching dresses, our dads in matching suits with the groomsmen, and the bridesmaids dress colours all tied in together to create the most beautiful colour scheme I could have imagined. My mum and mother-in-law getting ready with me was a really special part of the day, as my husband has no sisters or cousins, so my mother-in-law got to experience getting ready with a “daughter” figure, which she wouldn’t have otherwise. We made sure everyone felt included. Family is everything to us, so this was such an important element for us.

We always knew we wanted Australian natives for our weddings flowers due to their longevity but to add to the “elegance” we added white roses. Ashley’s mum loves white roses and my mum loves eucalyptus, so we incorporated both into our flowers, which were created by Leah Mitchell Floral. We wanted the theme of our wedding to be rustic elegance meets Australian bush, and with the flowers, venue and styling, that is exactly what we got!

We wanted our ceremony to be as relaxed as possible because we were both incredibly nervous. We purposely selected our celebrant (Married by Todd) because we knew he would keep us down to earth and make it enjoyable. I opted for a lesser-known Ed Sheeran song to walk down the aisle to – “How Would You Feel”.

No matter what happens on the day just try to enjoy it. Our arbour fell off the platform due to the wind halfway through our ceremony, which was heartbreaking but the day was still beautiful!

One of our favourite photos from the day – “The champagne pop” – was completely unintentional. I am terrible with champagne popping and throughout our engagement, I always knew I wanted a photo like this. So, leading up to it I would constantly tell my then fiancé he had to do it on the wedding day. When the time came, his champagne pop was so poorly done I thought we would never get the photo. So with the half popped champagne, I decided to give it a go. Unintentionally I managed to get the highlight photo of the wedding!!! No one in the bridal party expected me to be able to do it which made the photo even better!

A terrific memory from the day was drinking fireball on the venue driveway with the photographers before the reception. The photographers and videographer gifted us a bottle of fireball which we all consumed on the driveway prior to the reception which made us more relaxed for photos. My dad actually polished off the bottle!

I styled the entire them of the wedding with hire items from Heart & Timber and Simply Seated. We wanted to keep costs down and this kept our entire styling budget less than $750.

My maid of honour’s partner from Sharpe Edge Building made our wedding favours that doubled as our place cards. He made everyone timber coasters, and my maid of honour and I spent hours adhering the decals to them. We wanted favours that people would take home and use and we felt these timber coasters also tied in with the rustic elegance theme for our day.

Wildwood Kangaroo Valley was the first venue we looked at, and we booked It the minute we got home. We were made to feel so welcome there; everything about it felt like home. They also did our catering and our gorgeous wedding cake!

We chose Luke Fletcher Photography, who worked alongside Zain Kruyer Weddings to capture our wedding. These boys made our day so enjoyable. Being the same age as we are made us feel so much more relaxed – it felt like a big party all day with our long-term friends. We got along so well!

We shared our first dance to “Can’t Help Falling In Love With You” by Elvis Presley. It was my parents’ first dance song too. Then while I was dancing with my dad, my mum joined in and we had the three of us dancing together. I was the first in my family to get married so it was incredibly emotional and moving. We really just cried and held each other instead of dancing, which made a lot of our guests cry along with us.

Our videographer Craig Holbrook Films produced the most beautiful and moving video we had ever seen. It focused on the highlights of the day and makes us feel like it is our wedding day all over again whenever we watch it. Wedding planning was stressful, so one of the most enjoyable parts was finalising a service and then not having to worry about it anymore!

Thank you to the gorgeous Sarah & Ashley for sharing their seriously romantic day with us! And to Luke Fletcher and Zain Kruyer for capturing their day so perfectly so we could enjoy it all the more!