Renee recalls all the yummy details about her wedding day in the Sass blog chat below – Enjoy!

How did you meet?

Corey & I first met at a popular Geelong nightspot 10 years ago

Describe the proposal? 

It was very romantic, Corey had put so much thought into it, he had left a trail of notes with cryptic clues around Torquay, I was riding my bike in the rain from place to place, it led me to the sandunes where he was waiting with a bottle of champagne, he got down on one knee, it was beautiful.

How did you decide on a place to celebrate your wedding day?

We had holidayed together in Port Douglas a couple of times and both fell in love with the town, it was a special place to us and we knew it would be a perfect destination for our wedding.

Tell us about finding your wedding dress:

I actually didn’t step one foot into a bridal store, I knew I didn’t want a traditional wedding dress and had a picture of a certain style I loved, I went to my dressmaker in Geelong & she made my vision come to life.

I couldn’t have been happier with the end result, it was perfect.

Describe your wedding flowers:

I wanted that relaxed “just picked out of grandams’s garden look” My beautiful friend Megan is a florist in Melbourne and she did such a wonderful job with all of the flower arrangements & bouquets.

I had collected vintage jars & vases for 12 months leading up to the wedding, & they were the finished off with a gorgeous colorful wide variety of flowers for the table centerpieces.

I knew from day one I wanted simple daisies wrapped in twine for my bouquets, I wanted everything to look quite natural & simple.

Describe your wedding cake: 

We decided against a wedding cake, and created a DIY lolly buffet instead, it was a huge hit with the guests

What was the biggest challenge you faced while planning your big day?  

I guess the biggest challenge we faced was that we were planning everything from Geelong, and had to rely heavily on Port Douglas Catering, they were absolutely fantastic and made the planning process so stress free for us.

Sending up all of the items we wanted for the day was the biggest hassle, creating the lolly buffet meant sending up all the product & sourcing the equipment to present it in. Overall though we really had no huge challenges to overcome, apart from the weather! It did rain!

What was the most memorable moment about your wedding day?

The most memorable moment for ourselves and all of our guests was the persistent rain! It definitely made for a memorable occasion, eating dinner under the fig tree with water trickling down was actually quite magical, and then the lightning show started over the ocean. It was really special, wet… but special!

Did you write your own vows? 

Yes, we did write our own vows, it just gave a nice personal touch to the ceremony.

Where did you go for your honeymoon?  

We stayed in Port Douglas for a few days after the wedding, then headed to beautiful Palm Cove.

What’s next for you guys? Well, 6 months on from our special day we are actually expecting our first baby! We are both super excited for this next chapter in our lives together, and due in October, an extra special month for us now!

Good vibes were a plenty at the stunning ceremony location of Little Cove,  followed by a cocktail party that brought the house down at Harrisons Restaurant.

The other wonderful peoples that made their day fabulous were Nat and the crew at Stella Florists, Rachael Gregory (make up) and the delightful Sarah Woods (celebrant).  Music was by Steve Williams for the ceremony, Amy Chase and band during the evening, plus a hilarious surprise number by bridesmaid Emelie!

Enjoy!

It has a restaurant strip to suit even the most discerning foodie and lots of alternatives if a couch night in suits you better.

The hub of shops, spas and restaurants are all on the beach within an easy walk of one another.

If old mate needs occupying whilst you melt away in the vichy shower, you can catch a barramundi off the jetty.  Alternatively, he could just join you (or as Ben would say, you could just join him)  as most of the day spas in Palm Cove offer the ultimate in pampering for couples.

If you do decide to venture out of blissville, you’ll find yourself half an hour from Port Douglas to the north and the same distance to Cairns city heading south.

Love cats Linton and Pamela knew all this and more before they planned their Palm Cove wedding extravaganza and just wanted their guests to experience it all first hand.

Here’s a few shots from their wedding day and be sure to read Pammy’s recount of how it all panned out!

Xo C+B

How did you meet?

Linton’s sister was on clinical placement for nursing and I was her preceptor for a couple of weeks. She commented one day that her brother and I would make a perfect couple. Linton and I eventually met each other and he asked me to dinner. I knew from that very first date that he was ‘The One’.

Describe the proposal? 

It was such a wonderful day! We were holidaying in New Zealand at the time, and decided one day to drive to the Marlborough region to visit various vineyards. It was over a beautiful platter of local New Zealand produce and a glass of Pinot Noir at Wither Hills that Linton popped the question! It was beautiful, intimate and really reflected what we love to do. That night, we were able to celebrate with the rest of his family who were also in New Zealand.

How did you decide on a place to celebrate your wedding day?

I grew up in Mareeba before moving to Townsville for university after high school, so Palm Cove was always a favourite for family holidays when I was young. As a teenager, it was also a popular spot for my friends and I on the weekends, and in recent years, Linton and I love to escape to Palm Cove for a weekend getaway. It has therefore been a special place to me for as long as I can remember. I always wanted to get married on, or near, the beach, and Palm Cove has the perfect blend of ‘beachside elegance’ I was after. Many of our guests traveled some distance to be at our wedding, and they loved the beautiful and relaxed Palm Cove vibe.

Tell us about finding your wedding dress:

I searched for a wedding dress for months… I tried on so many dresses I lost count, but couldn’t find anything I truly loved. I was actually in Brisbane for a friend’s wedding when I spotted a dress I loved in the window of a bridal store. I tried it on and knew immediately it was the dress I had been searching for! It was then just a matter of going back to Brisbane a few months later for one week of fittings to get the dress made.

Describe your wedding flowers:

I wanted a soft, romantic look to the flowers and fell in love with David Austin roses, so we incorporated these into the bouquets with other roses and lisianthus. A dear family friend, who is a florist in Townsville, did an incredible job of transporting all the flowers up to Palm Cove and putting the bouquets and arrangements together with the help of Linton’s Mum, sisters and aunty. The flowers were so pretty, and guests were able to take home an arrangement at the end of the night, which was a nice touch.

Describe your wedding cake: 

Our wedding cake was really special as it was made with love – Linton’s Mum made the bottom tier, and my Grandma made the top tier. We had traditional fruitcake with royal icing, decorated with pearls, fresh roses and lisianthus.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while planning your big day?  

As we live in Townsville, we did a lot of correspondence with Cairns and Palm Cove suppliers via email, which made the task easier. However, we also tried to get to Palm Cove as often as possible on weekends, so the traveling did become a little tiring after 12 months of planning. I also missed the opportunity to spend time with all of my bridesmaids at once, as they were from Cairns, Townsville and Brisbane. We didn’t really have a chance to go shopping as a group for their dresses, but the time I spent with them individually was very special, as were the days we all spent together just prior to the wedding.

What was the most memorable moment about your wedding day?

I have so many memorable moments from the whole planning process that it would be hard to choose just one. I loved having my father walk me down the aisle as I am so proud of what a wonderful man he is. I loved having my best friends, some of whom I’ve known for over 20 years, stand beside me on the most important day of my life so far. I loved seeing Linton for the first time at the chapel, and knowing he would be the man I would spend the rest of my life with. I loved the speeches, the laughter, and the tears, knowing how lucky we are to have such incredible friends and family in our lives. And one very special memory I have just prior to the wedding was spending almost an entire day with my Mum and Grandma – the two women who have influenced me the most in my life – baking hundreds of heart-shaped cookies for guest favours. It truly was a time to feel so blessed and fortunate.
 

Dream team included:

Shae from Tropical Beauty, Brides of Brisbane, Roger David, Sea Temple resort and Spa, Rain Flowers in Cairns and 7 Coral Drive Port Douglas.

It had become apparent to us that we’d worked almost every day in about three years – the kids started to think something was wrong if we weren’t attached to an apple or a nikon…

So after scrubbing the calendar clean we set off from Port Douglas late last year, working our way south to a beautiful place called Mallacoota.  Along the way we had ourselves some good quality time as a family and explored the east coast in a random and leisurely fashion.  We went fishing and then we fished, occasionally finding time to throw a line in..

Here’s the iphone version of our holiday, the part that the four year old didn’t delete to make room for his ‘videos’

Xo  C+B

Here’s to friends, new and old.
Here’s to family, the ones we love and the ones we tolerate : )

Most importantly here’s to Love – the stuff we all need in big doses.

Take a glimpse at the beautiful people who invited us to capture theirs….. Cheers!

Untitled from sass studios on Vimeo.

How did you meet? We were both living in London and a mutual friend of ours organised a trip to the Oktoberfest in Munich. We met on that holiday but didn’t start seeing each other straight away. We saw each other again a few months later at a party, at the same mutual friends house. We started dating but I had already organised a Visa to live in Ireland. Brett’s UK visa was finishing and he was planning to go back to Australia, so we were going to try a long distance relationship. I had to go back to New Zealand for 2 months before my Irish Visa started and Brett was traveling around Europe. I missed him too much and decided I couldn’t be without him so I went and met up with him in Europe, traveled around Europe for a bit and came to live with him in Australia…. Best decision I ever made!!

Describe the proposal? Brett proposed on New Years Eve when we were on holidays in Queen Charlotte Sounds in New Zealand. We’re both a bit awkward and weren’t very good at ‘announcing’ our engagement, we just though “oh people will find out”. We did tell our parents and family straight away though. Our friends always give us a bit for having the most secret engagement. I think most of them found out about 2 months later… oops.

How did you decide on a place to celebrate your wedding day? We looked at heaps of venues and weren’t really excited about any of them. We really wanted somewhere where we could have everything all in the same place – the ceremony, reception and accommodation all in one, just so everyone could just chill out in one place and not have worry about transport. Then we came across Paradise Palms in Kewarra Beach and it had everything we wanted. We had all my family and friends coming over from New Zealand and Bretts family and our friends coming up from Townsville so it was really important to us that they all had a great time as well.

Tell us about finding your wedding dress:

I must admit I did try on quite a few dresses (in many different cities) but I ended up finding a dress when I was on holiday in New Zealand visiting my family, which worked out really great cos my Mum got to be there and help me choose my wedding dress, which was really special in it’s self. I just wanted something simple and classic without too much bling… which believe or not was hard to find.

Describe your wedding flowers:

The flowers for our wedding were really bright, fun and colourful. Nice garden look bouquet with orange parrot tulips, David Austin roses and irish bells. They also helped inspire the design for our wedding invitations, menus and stubby coolers etc.

Describe your wedding cake: 

Our wedding cake had layers of chocolate and carrot cake, our favs. The only decision we had when choosing the cake was if we would have normal or cream cheese icing. I wanted the normal and Brett wanted cream cheese. I won, so the guy who made our cake felt sorry for Brett and I think out of some kind of male solidarity he made Brett a separate carrot cake with a cream cheese icing which was so lovely of him to do. After all that I forgot to eat any cake on the wedding day, luckily there was lots left over – yum!

Any other favourite bits and pieces?

My Maid of Honour, Maria wrote an awesome poem for her speech at the reception, which I think everyone enjoyed… it got heaps of laughs anyway. Our guest book is pretty special too. We had a Polaroid camera and our friend Jo went and took photos of the guests and everyone wrote something next to their photos. All they comments that everyone wrote were so great, it’s like a big book of warm fuzzies and love!

What was the biggest challenge you faced while planning your big day? Trying to organise the wedding from Townsville was a bit tricky. We had to make a few trips up to Cairns to meet with suppliers. 

What was the most memorable moment about your wedding day? Probably the most memorable part of the day was when we were saying our vows. The celebrant was reciting the vows with Brett, he was a bit nervous and jumped in a bit too eagerly with his “I Do”, but this made everyone laugh and broke the ice so he relaxed a bit after that. At least I know he was keen to marry me, ha ha.

Did you write your own vows?  No, our celebrant has some really lovely simple verses that really summed up how we felt in a nutshell.

Where did you go for your honeymoon?  We haven’t been on our honeymoon yet. We’ve booked to go to Singapore and Thailand… can’t wait!!

What’s next for you guys? Wel,l after going to Singapore and Thailand on our honeymoon we’re looking forward to having  babies and just hanging out together, having fun and being in love.

 Dream team included, Celebrant  Eloise Barker-Re –  Flowers - Blush Floral    Cake  Cairns Wedding Cakes  Make up – Shae Howlett + their Fabuloso ceremony and Reception @  Paradise Palms

No pressure or anything boys, it must be hard you know…showing up, hanging out with the besties, having people fluff about like you’re royalty, eating and drinking like a king, partying till dawn and taking home the hottest chick in the room…tough

Meet Evan.

He surprised Karen with not one but two helicopters that showed up and whisked  them away to a deserted coral cay in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef for champas and sunset.

Cool. Very cool.

He kept this secret from her for months…..not easy.

So attention all man props.  It’s time to step up!  I don’t mean that everyone needs to have shiny yellow helicopters at their wedding, but do something, something unusual, something she’s not expecting..  Dare you.

                       Standby for more pics from their unique Palm Cove wedding, including their super dooper dream team x x x

What we didn’t count on was the amount of life Candy and Matt would breath into the area with their supercharged wedding day!

I’m not sure if it was the families beach shack or the chapel by the sea, the bedazzling Louboutins. The amazing Italian desserts that we keep stumbling across.  The princess dress, Teddy the fur child’s tux, the first dance choreographed to the finale of Dirty Dancing or the fact that the dance floor never emptied.  Every minute of the day was an event of some kind and I’m pretty sure that’s how they planned it.

Read through Candy’s blog chat, for her take on the whole event : )

How did you meet?

We met in High School and actually couldn’t stand each other but were forced to associate because of close mutual friends. At the end of High School Matt went to Brisbane to study and I did my Uni in Townsville but we reluctantly kept in touch. In our last year of study Matt moved to Townsville to do 6 months practical work and we met up for dinner. Some very unexpected sparks flew and we have been inseparable ever since. Needless to say those high school mutual friends were the most surprised when they heard we were an item! 

Describe the proposal? 

Perfect : ) Matt whisked me away for a surprise weekend. My first surprise spot was Paronella Park where we did the ‘Dusk Falls’ tour and the Park is lit up like a fairyland. Something I had always wanted to do. Then we continued on to Mt Quincan Crater Retreat which are beautiful luxury treehouses on the tablelands. My eyes were covered and when I opened them there was candles, roses, the fire blazing, champagne and dinner and dessert from my favourite restaurant in Yungaburra waiting in our room. After dinner Matt told me he had one more surprise and you can guess what that was: ) We spent the weekend up at the treehouses with in room massages and some cherished time together before coming back down to the congratulations waiting at home.

 How did you decide on a place to celebrate your wedding day?

From the moment Matt proposed I said “you know we are getting married at Kurrimine Beach right?” and of course he did. I had grown up at Kurrimine Beach and Matt and I had used Kurrimine Beach as our getaway when I was living with my parents and he was living with his Grandmother when we were saving for a place of our own so it was very special to us. I got ready at my great grandparents house where my parents actually got married and our ceremony was at the beautiful Tradewinds Chapel. We arranged a bus to take our guests to murdering point winery while we had photos and then back to Mission Beach Resort for our reception.

Tell us about finding your wedding dress:

My wedding dress ended up being the first one I tried on as you so often hear! I had always wanted a big princess dress but I kept an open mind and tried on other styles, however I always came back to that first dress with all its layers of fluffy tulle and fantastic detailed lace. My dress was from Bridal Palace in Townsville and Jo was amazing in helping me with my every question and need in the hunt for my ‘marshmallow’. 

Describe your wedding flowers:

The whole wedding had a very vintage romantic theme and so flowers were very important to the day. I had a lot of Hyacinth, David Austin Roses, Freesias and a touch of Hydrangea and my bouquet smelled amazing! The bouquets were styled by the amazing Jenny Rick from Mission Beach who did a fantastic job.

Describe your wedding cake: It was 3 tiers of fudgy chocolate mud and choc mint mud by ‘Cake by Shona’ and it was absolutely delicious! In between the tiers was wreaths of fresh flowers and a pink fondant letters on the top that spelled out LOVE. Shona also made our favourite desserts for the dessert buffet which included rose and raspberry macarons, Turkish delight and cherry ripe cake pop as well as the traditional Italian sweets of storch and Torrone. 

Any other favourite bits and pieces?

My little brother who was one of our groomsmen wrote a song especially for me to walk down the aisle to which I had never heard before the day. It was such a beautiful song and the best wedding present we could have had.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while planning your big day? Finding vendors for a wedding at Kurrimine and Mission Beach when we lived in Townsville! Having a destination wedding added a lot of extra considerations to the day and meant choosing vendors on their samples or strangers reviews rather than word of mouth like we would in Townsville. 

What was the most memorable moment about your wedding day? Matt says his most memorable moment was seeing me walking down the aisle in my ‘out dress’. For me it was when we said our vows and slid on our wedding bands and when we did our bridal waltz which was a choreographed dance to time of my life inspired by Dirty Dancing. It was so much fun!

 Did you write your own vows? 

No. Matt and I have always wanted a traditional wedding ceremony and nothing would have suited us better than the simple but strong and honest vows…I may have to remind him now and and then about the for better and for worse part : )

Where did you go for your honeymoon?  We spent a week in the Maldives soaking up the sun in our villa on stilts over the sea and had our first amazing scuba diving experience, we then moved on to Koh Samui in Thailand for a week and had our fair share of massages and cocktails on the beach.

What’s next for you guys? More holidays, parties with friends, having fun with our doggies and lots of love…but the babies can wait for a good few years so our parents will have to keep being patient until we are all travelled out : )