Wedding date: January 2020 // Guests 120
QB: All good love stories start somewhere; tell us how and when you met …
We met through our church and initially just enjoyed a really genuine friendship together. We quickly realised that there was much more than just a friendship and began pursuing each other. We were engaged within a year of dating and married 9 months after. We both intend to walk in immense gratitude for the rest of our lives for the fact that we each got to marry our best friend.
QB: Tell us about your lives together …
We’re both old souls. We love early morning coffees, markets, beach days, laughing (a lot), our families and being part of our local church and loving on that family and Jesus. We’re suckers for our close ones, and soaking up all the treasures this life has to offer, and marriage has been the perfect way to start a life of doing just that together.
What does marriage mean to you?
For us as Christians, marriage is a really vast, yet simple promise. We believe that marriage is forever; no matter what joys or trials we see in this life, we committed everything to one another, and that is how it will stay. Love isn’t always a feeling, it’s more often a choice, and we both vowed to choose love for each other for the rest of our days. Marriage to us is also a covenant that we have made with God. He designed marriage for us, and in the same way that he shows us unconditional love through covenant we made with him, we get to show each other that same love.
QB: Make us laugh, make us cry: who proposed to who, and how?
Back in May 2019, Matt had organised for me to have the afternoon off from work, to which he assured me against all of my hunches, was not for a proposal, but kept the plan all as a secret. Time crept up until the day of the afternoon, and I had shared with all of my friends and mum that I had so much anticipation for the afternoon, and little did I know that they were all in on it. 4pm on the 23rd of May rolled around, and I was dressed in the outfit Matt had picked for me. Upon arrival Matt blindfolded me and walked me to the car, I was so excited but had absolutely no clue what was going on, and as a control freak, was quietly struggling with the whole concept of no control. After a few minutes in the car, my Dad called through on speaker and said “Hey guys, how are you travelling? Make sure you get up here before 5pm so you don’t miss the sunset”. He soon hung up, and even more than ever, I couldn’t for the life of me, sniff out even a clue as to what we were doing. Almost an hour flew by of driving, and finally Matty said, “we’re here”, and I could hear the grin on his face as he said it. He came around to the door to help me out of the car, and asked me to trust where he led me, and then the blindfold could come off. So hesitantly I followed his guidance until I could feel a boardwalk under my feet. He then took off the blindfold, and as my eyes adjusted he asked if I recognised or knew where we were, and I still had no idea. He led me further up the boardwalk without saying anything, and I quickly realised we were at Mt Nebo lookout, somewhere really special to us both, as the last time we were there, had the discussion that transitioned us from friendship to working towards committing our lives to each other, and we had said we wouldn’t be back until we were engaged. As soon as I realised what was happening, my eyes caught Matt’s and surely enough, he was down on his knee. He proposed, I cried, and it was the most beautiful setting I could think of. After a few minutes though, I could tell something was off with Matt (odd timing for that to be the the case), to which he revealed to me that he had organised a videographer, photographer and one of my best friends to meet him here to capture the proposal and put on a spread for us, but they had all gone to the wrong lookout. We laughed, thought about staying where we were to enjoy the sunset for ourselves, but thought it would be cool to go and enjoy all of Matty’s efforts of organising, and so we did. It was perfect and candlelit, and we got some really precious moments captured, and although didn’t go as planned, ended up being the perfect proposal for us. It was just us two there as we promised to love each other as we started dating, and just us two as we solidified that promise to each other, and those pockets of time remain just the two of us. We soon left to get home, and arrived back home to a big surprise party with all our nearest and dearest, which Matty had also planned. Perfect start to planning our forever.
QB: How and why did you choose your venues?
We chose Little White wedding Chapel in Maleny for its bespoke, quaint, fairytale-like character. Cath and her husband were incredible to work with, and went above and beyond to look after us in the lead up to and on our special day. The chapel was also one of few to be able to seat our count of guests comfortably and was in perfect location to get some scenic pictures in dreamy Maleny. Our reception venue was our backyard, so we could celebrate with more peoples and craft the vibes of the wedding we were after. Fun, laughter, chilled boho vibes, and the more the merrier.
QB: What was the inspiration behind your wedding style?
As said, Matty and I are huge on family and friends, and we’re blessed to have them in abundance, so we wanted to have a wedding style to be able to cater to that. We enjoyed a more formal, traditional ceremony, followed by a fun, relaxed reception to enjoy, which speaks of our personalities. The details of all things aesthetic were tied together with a neutral/blush colour palette, with a bohemian feel which is something we both adore. We tried to pick things that we would love to fill our home with, and things we would be able to treasure well beyond the date of our wedding (dried flowers, jute rugs, etc).
QB: Did you incorporate any traditions or perhaps do something a little different?
For us, marriage is a huge commitment, so we tried to honour the weight of it by including a more traditional approach of a ceremony, but also made time for fun and our beliefs to tailor the service to who we are. We were really fortunate to have our Senior Pastor who is also someone very dear to us as our celebrant, and he bought both such sentiment and personal humour to the day. We had another Pastor speak for 5 minutes about Jesus, which was also really special to us. Any other parts of our day were made to fit our taste, and we only included things that we wanted.
QB: Were there any standout suppliers?
We were so fortunate that all of our suppliers were absolutely fantastic. Cath from Little White Wedding Chapel co-ordinated everything at the chapel with such an effortless friendliness and professionalism. Our stunning flowers were created by Wallflowers in Sandgate, where Renae made all our dreams come to reality. She took the words out of my mouth when we had a consultation with her, and they were everything we could have wanted and more. Our caterer was Briz Wood Fired Pizza, and these guys were excellent from the first point of contact to pack up; our guests have all mentioned how impressive the food and the friendliness of them was. Lastly, our photographer Brie Conomos, and videographer Liam Vautier of Lvautcreative. Both of them felt as if they were guests on the day, have captured everything we wanted with such a skill, and better than we could have asked. They have both gone above and beyond, and we will treasure what they created for us for the rest of our lives. Wr have also had mentions from our guests regarding how lovely and professional they were. We can’t thank them enough.
QB: Do you have any words of wisdom to offer other couples?
Enjoy every moment of the journey, and remember that a wedding is all about you and your partner. Have respect for each others ideas, be resilient if things don’t work out how you first planned, and decide on the things that really matter to the two of you. Your wedding will be beautiful, but enjoy it while you’re in it, because it comes and goes before you know it.
QB: Did you enjoy a honeymoon? If so, how and why did you choose your destination?
We enjoyed a week long stay right in the heart of Noosa Heads. We both adore the beach, and coastal lifestyle in general, but Noosa is a special place to us, and it gave us the week of relaxing and doing nothing that we needed coming off the end of such a busy time, in one of prettiest places the Sunshine Coast has to offer. We stayed in a gorgeous AirBNB, which again, we can’t recommend enough
[Little Black Book]
Photographer: Brie Conomos, Ceremony venue: Little White Wedding Church, Gown: Andrea’s Brides and Grooms, Shoes: Alias Mae, Jewellery: Ayla and Oak, Veil: Angelic Bridal, Groom suit: Sportscraft, Industrie, Shoes: R.M. Williams, Watch: Fossil, Groomsmen suit: Hallenstein Brothers, Bridesmaids & Flower Girls: Forever New, Coco Blush Boutique, Lovisa, Engagement ring: Prouds Jewellers, Wedding rings: Wallace Bishop, Florist: Wallflower, Cake: Made with Brides Nana, Videographer: Liam Vautier from Vautier Visuals, Caterer: Briz Wood Fired Pizza, Celebrant: Paster Rob Porter, Transport: Birti Classic Wedding Cars, Hair: Katrinas Home for Hair, MUA: Kate Ellen Makeup Artistry
