Photographer: Hannah Jones - Keeper Creative — *Photographer:* Hannah Jones - Keeper Creative

Wedding Date: 01.09.2018

What was your wedding venue and why did you choose there?
Pakenham Street Art Space (PSAS) for both the ceremony and reception. We actually locked the venue in before we even viewing it; we didn’t look at any other venues and as soon as we eventually had a walk-through, we knew it was the right place. It sounds pretty clichéd but it kind of matched our personalities and interests; we love art and old interesting buildings, the scale of the space made it feel a wee bit grand but it was also quite simple and minimalist…there was also a nice nostalgia to it being in Fremantle where I spent a lot of time growing up.

Did you have a wedding theme/style?
We wanted the ceremony and wedding to feel wintery, intimate and moody. We both love to entertain and frequently have dinners with friends and family at home that go well into the night. We essentially wanted it to be the biggest dinner party we had ever hosted with everyone we love. We followed few conventions and didn’t want too much pomp and ceremony.

How did you and your now Husband meet?
I suppose we formally met through work; Chris was a doctor and I was an occupational therapist at the time… but we always kept things very professional. That is until one night when we ran in to each other in a nightclub several years later. We took down each other’s contact details after one too many drinks and then caught up for a drink a week later. The rest is history.

What is your proposal story?
Chris was pacing around the house for most of the afternoon before going to play a water polo game. He’s a bit competitive, so I assumed he was simply nervous about the game. It was otherwise a fairly standard Wednesday evening. I’d had a long day at work, and was feeling rather uninspired about cooking dinner, so I was reheating left-overs when Chris arrived home from water polo, with an unusual air of enthusiasm. I assumed he had won the game. It also happened to be a ‘blue blood moon’ also known as a ‘super moon’ that evening; which is a once in a 150-year occurrence.

As I was stirring the soup, Chris continued to enthusiastically dart inside trying to entice me to come outside and look at the moon. I told him I had already seen the moon that evening and was rather pre-occupied with food. His persistence paid off and I came to look at the moon with him in our garden. It was at this point he proclaimed he had been speaking to our dog “Arty” about something; this was followed by an incoherent mumble… I was looking at the moon and had no idea what eccentric narrative he was trying to tell. I then turned around and he simply teared up and thrust a closed box into my hand. I could tell by his inability to speak and the tears in his eyes that the box was more than box, and I asked if he would like me to open it. After opening it, he finally got the words out “will you marry me” and of course I said yes. Needless to say, the dog got soup and we had champagne for dinner.

How did you hear about Prea James Bridal?
I was googling gowns and stumbled across the Instagram account and fell in love with many of them. As fate had it, there was a trunk show ending that weekend at Through the White Door.

From where did you purchase your gown?
Through the White Door

What do you love most about the gown?
I loved the simplicity and the way the fabric draped. I tried on only a handful of gowns before the Prea James gowns, and as gorgeous as they were, I didn’t feel like myself in them. I wanted something minimalist but still special. The draping and open back on the Arielle fit the brief to a ‘T’.

Are there any special details about your wedding that you would like to share?
The flowers were phenomenal; Rebecca Grace and her team did an amazing job with the installation. I was getting messages even months later from strangers about how incredible the flowers were. We had very little by way of decoration and we didn’t have a cake – so the flowers really set the tone.

PSAS is a heritage listed building so unfortunately; we weren’t able to have candles. The lighting was really important to us, as we wanted to achieve the feeling of intimacy in a very cavernous space. Rebecca Grace worked with our stylist and the lighting supplier to include low warm lighting along the tables and dark red velvet fringed light shades hanging from the ceiling – the lighting was very “first date” and we loved it.

I wanted to get Chris a present for the wedding day, but after months of searching I gave up. I then remembered a time we had been sitting in a hotel lobby overseas, and Chris was enamoured with the pianist who was playing modern classics. So, at the very last minute I called our wedding planner and asked if it wouldn’t be too difficult to source a grand piano, get it delivered to the building and find a pianist who was familiar with the likes of Hot Chip and Talking Heads! She had it all sorted in a matter of days, and when Chris turned up for the ceremony the pianist was in the corner playing renditions of some of his favourite songs.

Were there any details that you made yourselves?
Very little!! We were quite time poor, but I sewed the little bow and cuffs that the flower girl wore.

Finally, Do you have any words of wisdom for couples planning their big day?
Have fun with it. If you’re prone to overthinking everything – set a date less than 12 months out. We set a date 6 months out, so this naturally meant we couldn’t procrastinate too much, we had slightly fewer options, and we didn’t get all consumed by the planning process. If you have any wiggle room in the budget – get a planner.

No one will remember the font on your place cards in a years’ time… it’s really not important!