Brisbane High Tea Wedding

Any bride with a custom-made gown has automatically got my attention, and Clare’s gown, designed by Rebecca Cobbing with pops of pink and tulle caught my eye straight away. Clare and Adam’s wedding day was full of vintage touches, lawn games, and all things English to celebrate the couple’s background. Thanks to Shutter and Lace for sharing these images with us!

From the bride, Clare: As I am English I really wanted to create a wedding that incorporated my English background. I wanted to have a vintage feel but not rustic vintage more antique styling, and to be outdoors. To try to encapsulate these elements the theme for our wedding was a vintage English garden party. It was important for the wedding to be outdoors with plenty of greenery. For the styling I chose to keep furniture etc white and clean with accents of pink and green mostly brought out in my dress and the flowers that decorated the venue.

In regards to DIY I did quite a lot of things myself. I wanted to be able to personalise and design our wedding to be something that was ‘us’. Adam and I both love vintage so it was a natural choice. I started by making design boards to collect images and ideas for what kind of styling we wanted for the venue, invitations, and my hair and dress etc. I designed to do the styling for the ceremony and reception to fit the vintage garden party theme. The ceremony was in a beautiful garden area next to a creek, and the venue had a marquee on a larger grassed area. As the ceremony and reception were at the same venue we decided to have a ‘tea party’ area complete with armchairs and croquette near the marquee for the guests to enjoy whilst we were off having our photos taken. I also made my little jumpsuit I was wearing as I was getting ready, I used a vintage sewing pattern and adjusted it slightly to make it a bit cuter. I made it out of a floral cotton fabric and used a vintage looking crochet lace trim and ribbon to tie the waist.

As the ceremony and tea party were in the garden and the rest of the reception was in the marquee, I thought it would tie in to the theme nicely if we made the marquee like a vintage English house amongst the garden, so I decided to style each of the table settings as a room in the house, for example one table was the sewing room, one the boudoir, the music room etc each of the tables had vintage items that I collected, i.e. vintage family photos and vintage camera for the attic table, each of the tables has vintage glass bottles I collected for flowers and preserved moss to bring some green and a garden feel into the whiteness of the marquee. As I had styled the tables like rooms in a house, I made a seating plan to match, Adam and I bought an old gold frame, wallpapered some plywood for the backing onto which we glued the seating plan which I had drawn like the cross section of a house with the peoples names in each of the rooms. We also made a prop that looked like a wall in a house, on which we displayed photos of Adam and I as children, both our grandparents and a drawing I made of one a Dr Seuss quote (we both grew up reading Dr Seuss). The images on my stationary design board also came in handy for the design of my invitations and programmes which were custom made for me by the lovely Sweetpea Sunday.

Any advice for brides planning their weddings now? My advice for brides would be start planning as early as you can, even if you just start flicking through magazines to get an idea of what your after. I really found making design boards helpful, collecting lots of images of various aspects of your dream wedding will narrow down your focus to exactly what you do and don’t like. I had several different boards for my dress, hair and make-up, stationary, table settings, ceremony styling etc. I also found Facebook immensely helpful, I found both my dressmaker and photographer on Facebook, have a look at which pages various wedding suppliers have liked. Etsy is also an amazing resource — so many amazing wedding things you can buy there.

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Adam and I learnt a dance for our first dance, as I was petrified we were going to end up doing the penguin dance, it was great fun but sadly I didn’t test out our routine in my dress before hand and it was really hard to do turns! I would definitely recommend learning a dance or doing something different that puts your personal stamp on the day. It’s your wedding, and its really nice if both your personalities are reflected in the day to make it extra special. I was lucky enough to have super crafty friends to surprise me on the day, Ben who walked me down the aisle gave me a sixpence to put in my shoe just as I got out of the car (it’s an English tradition, not sure if other countries do it?) he also had one for himself to signify our lasting friendship. All the personal touches really add to making your day yours, so don’t worry too much about the big budget blowing items focus on the small details that make it personal.

Wedding Music:
Processional: “I Can’t Help (Falling in Love With You),” Elvis Presley
Signing of the Register: Portuguese Love theme from Love Actually
Recessional: “We Found Love,” Rihanna
First Dance: “I Won’t Let You Go,” James Morrison
For our readings we chose two poems, “The Owl and the Pussy Cat” and “Touched by an Angel.” We also had a rose ceremony which was suggested by our celebrant, Bianca Neves. Bianca was brilliant, totally organised and full of great suggestions for our ceremony, which really helpful. Having such a wonderful celebrant was really important to me as I wanted someone we gelled with and that had the right feel for our type of relaxed ceremony.

Wedding Location: Brisbane, Australia / Wedding Photographer: Shutter and Lace / Flowers: Imbue Weddings / Wedding Venue and Caterer: Bundaleer Gardens / Wedding Dress: Rebecca Cobbing / Wedding Shoes: Zu / Hair and Makeup: Powder Room / Wedding Cake: Deliciously Decadent Cakes / Wedding Music: Radio Club Band / Furniture Rentals: Love Bird Weddings and Dream Day Weddings / Wedding Invitations: Sweet Pea Sunday / Videographer: Oliver Kuo / Transportation: Princess Luxury Classics