Ivana and Martin’s Italian-inspired wedding at Stones of the Yarra Valley was the perfect blend of timeless elegance and personal touches. Their journey from meeting at work to a romantic proposal in Maui culminated in a day filled with love, joy, and unforgettable moments. With classic details, custom attire, and heartfelt ceremonies, their wedding day was a true reflection of their unique love story and personal style. Join us as we delve into the beautiful details of Ivana and Martin’s special day. 

 

We both met at work. We were both new to the company and spent a lot of time training together. Our proposal happened at sunset on the beach in Maui, Hawaii on 28 August 2019. We were there for a two week holiday and Martin proposed a couple of days into our trip.

My dress was custom made by Eva Tomala of D’Italia. The experience was fantastic and something I have never done before – the amount of detail and time that went into creating my dress so that it was absolutely perfect was incredible. My mum came to every appointment with me and helped design the dress so that was a really special part of the experience as well.

The dress was made with Italian silk and French lace and it was ivory. It had a beautiful, embellished lace chocker around the neck. The bust was embellished French lace as well. Around the waist was silk ruched detailing. The bottom was a straight with a small train and there was a detachable overskirt with a long train.

I designed this dress to match my style – I always knew I wanted something custom made and a bit different to what’s typically out there.

Martin wore a custom 3 piece suit made by YSG Tailors. There was a black suit jacket, vest and pants with an ivory white shirt and pocket square to match the my dress.

Our wedding was held in October 2023 at the lovely Stones of the Yarra Valley. The wedding style and theme was very classic and timeless with hints of Italian/European flair. The atmosphere was full of love and so much joy.

The floral arrangements were all white with greenery – we had a lot of roses and hydrangeas.

We chose Stones of the Yarra Valley as it was the first place we went to see and absolutely fell in love. The Italian details all throughout the venue were very special to the brides Italian heritage and felt like we were in Italy right here in Melbourne!

 

I walked down the isle to “Can’t helping Falling In Love” by Haley Reinhart and my dad walked me down the aisle.

We wanted our wedding ceremony to be a little traditional with the vows but also wanted it to tell our story. There were so many emotions and happy tears.

We had 3 bridesmaids and 3 groomsmen. The 3 bridesmaids were made up of my 2 closest friends and my brothers partner and groomsmen were made up of Martin’s brother and brides 2 brothers. The bridesmaids wore a soft sage green satin dress with cross neck detailing. The groomsmen wore custom all black 3 piece suits.

In terms of DIY, we assembled all the favours ourselves with our families.

 

For our first dance, we chose “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran. We had a few dance classes leading up to the wedding and thought the choreography was getting a bit too advance for us so we stopped doing classes a few weeks out from the wedding day. We totally forgot to come up with some steps, so had to completely wing it on the day! We didn’t end up doing too many steps, more just swaying – both of us can’t watch back the dance footage without laughing!

 

We had some traditional Italian dancers do a performance for us.

 

Our photographer was Hey Jack – we wanted very candid/editorial type photos and they did exactly that!

Our favourite detail from our wedding was the venue. The Italian feeling all throughout the venue made it very special. It really felt like we were on a beautiful winery somewhere in Italy. We also had a very cool fireworks display at the end of the night – we had never been to a wedding with fireworks and neither did anyone we knew so we loved that we were able to do something like that.

Best advice for future marrieds to be – make the wedding very you! The best compliments we received on our wedding day was that everything was very reflective of us, from my dress, down to the venue and the styling.

We weren’t so focused on what was trending and focused more on our personal style and tastes.

Some great advice there Ivana! A huge thank you for sharing your spectacular wedding day with us. Wishing you both all the very best for the future. Thank you as well to the wonderfully talented team of Hey Jack who captured Ivana and Martin’s photographs and wedding video.