Yes, this blog post is all about my wedding!


From the things I would do again in a heartbeat; to the biggest f**k-ups, this post is dedicated to all things champagne taste on a beer budget 🥂


So some of you may know the horror story that was our actual wedding day, and some of you missed out on hearing about it, but the main reason I began my company was to be the exact opposite of what I got on my wedding day.

So obviously, the one thing I would recommend splurging on is a great photo & video team.

I got lucky in that my wedding video was phenomenal, and for what I paid at the time, absolutely amazing value butttt the wedding photo however, was not so great.

I highly recommend that if you can source an amazing team who work together like myself & Nico Ford Media or

About Time Co & Requelle Aiken Weddings or Maple & Mist alongside Against the Grain Photo; DO IT! You will not regret having incredible images & video to share for all the years to come and with teams who make you feel at ease & work seamlessly together to capture every fleeting second of your big day! This is obviously the one thing I would spend my money on time and time again.

I know I have packages that can accomodate just about any budget & most of us do our absolute best to get you great value & return on your investment so looking at other ways to save on over spending is definitely the route I would go.


Things I would do again:


Venue

Luckily for us, I knew of a hidden gem close to us that had EVERYTHING. Onsite accommodation (we booked it out for the whole weekend so we could sleep 95 & guests paid the venue $15 directly to stay) an outdoor chapel, a gorgeous clifftop hall with a windowed wall & a fully functioning hospitality kitchen for our caterers. Needless to say we booked on that alone!

Since we got hitched in 2019, the camp has also added mini golf and a rock climbing wall alongside the already available tennis & basketball courts, kayaking, kids playground, low ropes course and pool. This hidden gem is called Duckadang and is only an hour from Brisbane at the mouth of the Brisbane river (don't let the name put you off, it's gorgeous)


Catering

Most wedding guests are there because they love you and they want to see you on the best day of your lives, but if you don't feed them, or give them something to drink, they will leave to do that themselves! My recommendation is to see if your venue has a preferred catering vendor, usually they will have multiple recommendations of some great people and then you can shop around and get quotes from all of them (some venues have affiliations and you could even end up with a discount)


Dress

I went to four different stores. FOUR, and I found nothing. Within 10 minutes, I found my dress online for $499!

If you have the time allowance, I would HIGHLY recommend doing your homework and either shopping sample sales or even online. I bought my dress here: https://anofficial.com/collections and at the time there was a sign-up code that got me 30% off. I bought the dress about a year out to allow plenty of time for it to be made to my custom measurements & then have any extra alterations (the dress I chose had SO much tulle that I literally took out 3 layers and used them as my veil)


Video

The week before our wedding, my husband's Nan was put on bedrest & couldn't make it to our day so at the last second I messaged all of my video friends to see if anyone was available to film something for us. Luckily I got blessed with an amazing human who not only filmed & edited a wedding video for us but also filmed our speeches as well, like I said, we were BLESSED.


Cake for dessert

While it's not always everyone's cup of tea, we knew our guests would LOVE it! We specifically ordered a vegan, GF cake & shopped around until we found the best of the best (Cakes made with love by Nadia, you are PHENOMENAL) & then even ordered some extra flavours of cupcakes so that we had a huge variety to choose from!


Beer & Wine Bar

For our day, we knew that there were about three people who would drink spirits so we let them know in advance that we were only doing champagne, wines & beer. Not only did it make stocking the bar so much easier but it also saved us SO much money! For the kiddos, we did lemonade and for me, we had coke 😂 (I don't drink alcohol all that often)


Things I regret, so much:


Photo

Oh my god. Do NOT book based solely on price. Do NOT book someone for 1500 without a contract. Do NOT do what I did.

PLEASE please PLEASEEE look for someone that you get along with, who will not get stuck with the nickname 'Nazi' within your entire guest list. Book with a vendor who will help you & do all that they can do go above & beyond for you.


DIY

Nope. Please do not DIY your entire wedding.

I was so emotionally invested in the DIY that the stress made me sick.

If you do want to have personalised cookies as your placards, order them through a professional, don't stay up until 3am hand painting 100 something cookies with gold leaf and stamping names.


Bridal Party

Don't let your fear of not including someone, ruin the day that is meant to be the happiest of your life. If someone is going to speak negatively of you, do not put them in your bridal party, I don't care who says you have to.


All in all, while I didn't end up loving our wedding, I love & adore the man I married and the family I gained. So take the good with the bad & notice the blessings you DO have in your life (like a blog post detailing all the sh*t to avoid)


If you have a great team of vendors & a guest list full of people who love & adore you and your spouse; consider yourself lucky that you did your homework & you get to celebrate your love with your friends & family alongside you while partying up a storm!