Gold Coast Australia Wedding

We love opening our inbox to see drop dead gorgeousness submitted to us by none other than the bride herself! Rachel and Scott married in Queensland with a truly handmade affair captured to perfection by Trigger Happy Images. We admire Rachel’s advice of looking outside the box for non-wedding vendors to help scrimp and save in various areas of your budget!

From the bride, Rachel: As Scott is British and I am Australian, our first decision was where to hold the wedding. In the end we decided to hold it in Australia as this is where we are currently living, but thought it was be amazing to have an English garden themed wedding. We had an amazing group of family and friends that came all the way from the UK for the day, so we wanted to make it a day everyone would all enjoy and remember. The Gold Coast Botanic Gardens were exactly what we were looking for. There was a huge fig tree right by the water, and a natural bamboo archway leading down to it. Perfect!

From the very beginning we decided that we would have a DIY wedding. We had a small budget, but also wanted it to be personalised and reflect us a couple. We wanted each of the bridal party to have quirky accessories that suited them. I chose different earrings and brooches for the girls that suited them, and Scott picked watches and socks for the boys.

We collected jam jars for months for decor and for drinks at the ceremony! DIY elements included our invites, decorations, bouquets, guestbook, and sashes for the bridesmaid dresses. Making our invites was super fun! We love photos, so created a photographic invite, with pics of ourselves. We then had the formal invite details on the back, and stitched both sides together, and tied each invite with twine and a postage tag with the guests name hand written.

For the ceremony we collected the decorations all throughout our engagement. Lanterns, vintage lace from my grandma’s glory box, bunting. We had our English guests bring fondant fancies & party rings, and we made jugs of pims and lemonade, and iced apple & cinnamon tea for refreshments afterwards.

A Vibrant Destination Wedding on Kona Beach in Blue & Gold

Our main advice for other couples would be to do as much as you can by yourselves, it makes it personal and from the heart. Look for non bridal suppliers to save where you can. Wedding dress, bridal party outfits, flowers from wholesalers – you can find amazing things when you think outside the box!

View all images from this wedding in the gallery

Wedding Vendors (Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia):

Ceremony Location: Gold Coast Regional Botanic Gardens / Reception Location: The Garlic Clove / Wedding Photographer: Trigger Happy Images / Ceremony Decor: Original Occasions / Wedding Flowers: Bride and bridesmaids / Wedding Dress: Sue Wong / Wedding Shoes: Wittner / Bridesmaids’ Dresses: ASOS / Hair: Candy Hairdressing / Makeup: Lea Beauty / Groom’s Shirt: ASOS / Groom’s Trousers and Bow Tie: Roger David / Wedding Cake: My Little Cupcake Empire / String Trio: Tonic / Stationery: Bride and Groom / Celebrant: Clarah Luxford / Transportation: Byron Bay Retro Cars