Ready for a delightful day in the country? Well on this first day of winter, I can’t tell you how much we are! Enter the wedding of Georgia & Patrick; beautifully romantic, a little modern and jam-packed full of carefully considered fun. This was a day the newlyweds planned to be as relaxed, and as joyful as possible, and it worked! “I think our guests really enjoyed a wedding that wasn’t super structured or rigid with what would happen” explains Georgia. “It just felt like a big party and there was no pressure or stress on if something went slightly wrong or differently.”

With Somethings Wild behind the cameras (both stills and film) and all the stress of the plans handed over to wedding planner superstars The Wedding and Event Creators all that is left to do is for you to settle in with your favourite hot beverage (it is winter after all) and enjoy the story!

As registered nurses, Georgia and Pat’s story beings when they met at university while studying. “I had seen Pat around the campus and had the biggest crush on him from the minute I saw him” laughs Georgia. “It wasn’t until the power of tinder that we actually started talking. He asked me to be his girlfriend by hiding a build-a-bear (personal joke) with a note in the backseat of my car after a road trip we went on – he messaged me that night and said he thought he might’ve left something in my car and could I check. That’s when I found the bear with the note! The rest is history.”

The proposal? Well, it took place on the day after another wedding, Georgia admits she may have just been violently hungover and had Pat drop her at work in the morning. She goes on to tell the story. “During the day whilst I was at work he, my family and his family helped clean up the whole house, the front yard and the driveway. They organized balloons, food and bubbles as well.

I finished work early as the clinic I worked in wasn’t busy so I messaged him to come and pick me up. He stalled for a bit but finally had to run to get me while leaving our families to finish up the house. On the way home we chatted like normal, I wouldn’t have realised at all.. he went a different way home so that when he pulled into the driveways I wouldn’t see the balloons inside (which I did not even pick up on). He asked me to grab something out of the boot, and when I opened the boot there was a build bear with a note saying he had something important to ask me I turned around and he got down on one knee in the driveway of our house with our families watching from the front door and a bedroom window. My dad was on the roof of the garage taking photos as well, bless.”

Not only did the couple choose Somethings Wild as their photographer, but the team also captured a film of their day. “We first met something wild when they filmed my sister and brother-in-law’s wedding in 2019. They’ve also done two other friends of ours weddings so we knew when we started hunting for vendors we needed them. I think they were the first vendor we booked after we chose our date.
Rose and Lachie are so good at what they do, their whole vibe is the best, they captured our day the exact way we wanted it captured, the photos are amazing and the video is epic. I cannot speak highly enough of them, every other wedding photos and videos I see are just not as good as these guys haha savage but true! Get a video… you will never regret it (as long as you get a good videographer like Something Wild).”

“Pat was pretty relaxed about getting a suit” explains Georgia, “he ended up going with a local suitmaker (Formal Wear 2 Suit U) who made the suits for our brother-in-law and some of his friend’s weddings. He went with a beige matching suit and looked bloody stunning.”

Georgia’s stunning gown was a creation by Spell. She remembers  “Picking the dress was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. I knew I wanted something casual but stunning and I didn’t want to go to too many dress shops as I get overwhelmed easily haha. On a family trip to Byron, my sister on a whim booked us into the Spell bridal suite – I wear Spell all the time so it’s very my vibe.

My mum, my sister and I went in not thinking anything in particular as I hadn’t even looked at what dresses they had online. Hannah at Spell was amazing, so welcoming and friendly and helped us out so much. I tried on a couple of dresses and finally put on my wedding dress and matching veil. I was in love. It was so comfortable and stunning – it was on sale due to covid and I ended up getting the dress and the veil at such a bargain. I ended up buying a mini Shona Joy ivory long-sleeve dress to change into as I am a big party dress girl.”

“I wore my great-grandmother’s engagement ring on the day which was very special. But apart from that, no special traditions – apart from the something old (nanna’s ring), something new (my wedding dress), something borrowed (my sister’s wedding shoes) and something blue (a blue sapphire on a chain from my parents).”

The beautiful Bawley Vale Estate was chosen as the venue for all the celebrations. Says Georgia  “Pat and I had been down to Bawley Point for a small anniversary trip during COVID. We kept driving past Bawley Vale Estate and seeing the grange in the distance from the main road into Bawley. We both desperately wanted to get a closer look but they were closed over winter for wine tastings. After we got engaged we booked a visit down to see it and another venue close by – unfortunately on that day the road to the other venue was closed due to a bush fire so we went to Bawley Vale Estate first.

Marg at Bawley Vale was great; she showed us around the whole property and let us have time on our own to get a proper feel. We loved it. In the days after we contemplated visiting some other venues but we knew deep down Bawley Vale was the one. So we booked it a couple of days later!”

The quiet moments of support their hosts gave them were absolutely a standout to Georgia. “In the morning some of the groomsmen forgot belts (classic) and Tim from Bawley Vale went and got some for the boys just so cool, calm and collected which was exactly what they needed.

Where we decided to have the ceremony was by the lake parallel to The Grange and it was mostly because I didn’t want a long aisle. After all, I was nervous… The girls and I got dropped by the side of The Grange and we shuffled in quickly (we were running late and very frazzled). Right before the ceremony started Marg walked to the front of The Grange and blew a kiss to me through the window and said “You look so beautiful” and it was honestly exactly what I needed to ground me and calmed me right down. There were so many moments like this from all of the vendors over the day that it’s so hard to pick a specific stand-out vendor.”

There was a little DIY fun! “We made our signs – which was really fun. I saw a video on tik tok of someone making their signs and I loved it. Our brother-in-law is a builder and helped us, we got the wood and made two arched signs one slightly taller than the other. We marked them out and cut them (which was hilarious because Pat and I couldn’t figure out how to get the perfect curve until our brother-in-law helped… funny story about me saying we need a really big protractor). We picked two green colours and painted them. Then our friend who is a graphic design artist put us in touch with someone that could put the decals on it and they looked perfect. We were so happy we made our celebrant make a point of telling everyone we did them during the ceremony and to compliment us!”

The stunning floral details in shades of blush and peach were designed and created by Gypsy Carmen. “We had been sent some of the local vendors for flowers by Bawley Vale but I already had my eyes on Gypsy Carmen. I had been into the Gypsy Carmen storefront in Ulladulla before and was obsessed. Claire at Gypsy Carmen was incredible, from the minute I spoke to her she just knew the exact vibe I was going for. I was pretty loose on things that I wanted and I really left a lot up to her creativity but I knew that whatever she did would be spectacular. I wanted a dried sort of style with natural bush colours but that was kind of it. I knew I wanted the flowers to be my big statement of the day as I wanted a flower arbour and handing installations in the grange – I was so stoked with how to flowers turned out. I had so many people mention how amazing the flowers were. Gypsy Carmen killed it.

The flowers made me excited – getting inspiration for different styles of flowers and details was so good I was just so excited every time I spoke with Claire because I just knew it would come together perfectly and I was so keen to see it all together.”

Georgia chose “Hold” by Vera Blue to play as she walked down the aisle, hand in hand with her dad.

“Love Elise Celebrant just made our ceremony so perfect, she understood what we wanted and just made it perfect” tells Georgia, continuing “We wanted our ceremony to feel relaxed and fun. We didn’t want it to be rigid or strict on what happened. I walked down the aisle in bare feet and we told our celebrant that we wanted it to have a casual feel to it. Our 2-year-old niece was involved and we told our family not to stress about her and if she wanted to walk around or be up with us to let her (she got up at one point just to give Pat a cuddle which was too cute). We wanted to acknowledge our family members that had passed away and couldn’t be there during the ceremony and I asked my friend who is a writer to write a piece on love that he spoke during the ceremony. Overall it was a perfect ceremony.”

“As hard as it is try to push for a relaxed ceremony.. it really set the tone for the day” notes Georgia. “Put some time into the vows and make them as personal as possible – listening back to the vows now is honestly so special.”

The wedding party was as careful a decision as the other choices Georgia & Pat made for their day. “My sister was my maid of honour and my bridesmaids were my cousin, my best friend from uni and my best friend from work. They all wore Bec and Bridge sage dresses, and each of them wore a different style as I wanted them to be comfy and feel good in their dresses.

Pat had his brother as his best man, our brother-in-law, and two of his best mates from school as groomsmen. They also wore suits made by the same suitmaker that made Pat’s suit (from Formal Wear 2 Suit U) in a sage/forest green colour. Our niece was a flower girl as well – she wore a beautiful little white linen dress with a sage green tie.”

The couple handed all the setup and coordination of their day over to wedding planners The Wedding & Event Creators. “Honestly every single one of our vendors stood out to us not one thing went wrong and they were all so good in their ways. The Wedding & Event Creators did such a good job at coordinating and organising everything – they just didn’t stress me out at all and in the morning sent me updates which were actually really good as I’m such a control freak.”

“We  had a table with photos of family members who had passed away so that they felt close to us during the day/night.”

Guests were invited to leave audio well wishes for the newlyweds via telephone guestbook At The Beep.

“The other really special thing was having Pat’s 3 grandparents there, all three are from Tasmania and made the journey up to Sydney which isn’t easy at their age. Having had all my grandparents pass away when I was younger it felt really special to have them all there, to be able to dance with them and there was just so amazing.”

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Guests enjoyed a sit-down feast catered by Garnish Catering.  “One of the staff from Garnish pulled me aside and was like “you’re not doing a cake cutting… come on you only get to do this once you’ve got to!” So we did and some of my fave photos are from the cake cutting.

Not to mention the amount of compliments I received for the food was huge – Jo from Garnish came out after all the food was done and found me and asked me if I was happy with everything and needed anything which I thought was so good. They also packed up all the leftovers for us – amazing!” And while there may have been cake, there was also Georgia’s mum’s famous caramel slice. “It was gone in literally minutes. Our friends and family LOVE Mum’s caramel slice. Apart from that having photos of our loved ones with a little poem about them always being with us was a very special detail to include.”

For their first dance, the newlyweds chose Van Morrison’s “Have I Told You Lately”. Explains the bride “I remember listening to this song a lot as a kid in the car because my mum loved it. It’s just a really beautiful song. We didn’t practice dancing at all which in hindsight we should have because we ended up just holding onto each other and swaying haha!”

Even the father-daughter dance was special, “I also wanted to include something special for our father-daughter dance so I picked the song that my mum and dad danced to on their wedding day and surprised my dad with that.”

Props to DJ The Vintage Stylus. “Our DJ was epic and played the best sets ever” raves Georgia.

A big beautiful congratulations to you both Georgia and Pat! Thank you for sharing your beautiful wedding day with us and thank you to Somethings Wild and  The Wedding and Event Creators for working with us on this feature!