Blog : Weddings

A dream wedding for Jess and Paul who celebrated with family and their closest friends at the Chateau Tanunda located in the Barossa Valley. It’s surrounded by beautifully kept grounds, amazing vine filled walls; a vine yard and the building itself is just gorgeous. It is such a beautiful venue and it was an absolute pleasure to be back at the Chateau and be their wedding photographer.

I absolutely love “how we meet” stories and Jess and Paul’s is no exception…
“Paul and I first met on August the 3rd, 2013. We were both out in Adelaide partying at nightclubs. My sister’s boyfriend (now Fiance) who is friend’s with Paul sent him a text to come to the nightclub that I was at, and he did.
The nightclub was called, The London. I decided to play a joke on Paul and had told a female stranger in the nightclub that he was very keen on her but he was too shy to say anything. I stood back and laughed whilst this stranger approached Paul and went in for a kiss. Paul had to awkwardly avoid her for the rest of the night.
That night I went home with a group of friends and Paul. He was a gentleman and offered me his jumper at the end of the night. He slept on my bedroom floor on a mattress.
We added each other on Facebook the next day and started talking which led to some our first dates!” – Jess

Jess + Paul I hope you are both relaxing and enjoying the beginning of married life on your honeymoon in Hawaii. I wish you the very best for your future.

JN xx

Wedding Dress: LUV Bridal
Jewellery: Swarovski (borrowed from sister in law)
Suits: Mens tweed Suits (UK)
Florist: A peony for your thoughts
Rings: Michael Hill
Cake: Melissa Hooker
Makeup Artist: Courtney Evans
Hair Stylist: Casual Bliss Salon
Venues: Chateau Tanunda
Transport: Cars of Class
Wedding photographer: Jade Norwood

Figuring out your wedding budget is definitely not the best part of planning, but is super-important. First, you’ll need to figure out who’s paying for what, or how much money you are being given by parents etc. Statistics say that almost half of couples are paying for the majority of their wedding themselves. Once you’ve figured out the total sum of money you have to spend (the average cost of an Australian wedding is about $38,000), then work out how you’ll split it between all of the goods, vendors and services you’ll need. WeddingWire has a great budget tool to help you stay organised. Budget so that you still have some money in the kitty because there will always be unexpected costs pop up (74 percent of couples go over their budget!).

At the end of each wedding season, I sometimes find myself wondering “Is it my time to finish on a high, am I getting too old and rickety for this, should I be doing something else?” and then I get a couple like Abby + Cade and I’m so quickly reminded of why I absolutely adore attending weddings, preserving precious memories, documenting moments and safe guarding a family’s history.

Everyone knows I love a “How did you first meet” story and this is no expection.
“ We first met at the Streaky Bay races in 2013 – Cade had a very burnt nose haha. We had a few mutual friends, had a short conversation and that was it. Throughout the year we were often at the same social events and both didn’t think much of it apart from a few friendly conversations. My friend Tessa came to visit me in Ceduna one weekend and said she thought that Cade guy at the footy club liked me, I just said ‘nah he’s just friendly’ and thought nothing of it.

Then came ‘the camping trip’, later that year a group of us went camping at cactus. Cade and I were the last two sitting around the fire drinking Cades red wine, we decided to go for a walk down the beach where we just happened to hold hands (I may have been losing my balance, not used to drinking red wine!) and that was it. The next day I thought to myself that Cade guy is nice, he cooked an awesome meal for all of us camping, drank good wine and liked the beach and camping.

Over the next couple weeks we messaged each other on facebook and I organised to join Cade’s sisters table at the Oyseterfest dinner (I knew Cade would be there!) where it all really started to happen.
From there it was typically awkward trying to date someone in a small town, people asking whose car was at your place yesterday? and trying to go to and leave social events separately, having dinner dates at each others houses instead of the pub to prevent rumours until we were ‘Facebook official’ haha. It didn’t take us long, we both knew in a few weeks we wanted to be together, and here we are now happier then ever and all married and shit! ”

Abby + Cade’s wedding day was wrapped in a blanket of pure joy and lots and lots of layers of love. These guys and their wedding day were a whole lot of awesomeness for me and I really hope I’ve been able to bottle some of that emotion that was so present on their wedding day.

We were blessed with a beautiful day, maybe a little windy close to the beach but it was still gorgeous and the couple said their vows infront of the old woolshed. As they were announced as husband and wife and walked back down the aisle, the sun shone covering everyone in warm dusky sunshine. It was magical.

As the sun sank into the ocean, everyone enjoyed a fabulous feast under fairy lights and surrounded by amazing decoration details and flowers. We have the most incredible countryside in South Australia, what better way to celebrate, so close to the beach and so close to the bush! I love that they also dedicated an area to wedding memories from their families history.

Abby and Cade, you are surrounded by the most darling and charming of friends and family. You guys are incredibly loved and adored by those that you adore and love too, possibly the most wonderful blessing there is to be had in life. Continue to fall in love with each other every day you are blessed with each other. Thank you for sharing your day with us, it was such an honour to create some new and heartfelt family heirlooms for you all.

 

Fiona and Brad – I just have to start with WOW. You guys, your love, your styling, your location pick, your wedding day was AMAZE You would be forgiven for thinking that this was a styled shoot for a wedding magazine; that is how truly picture perfect the day was. Fiona + Brad have a love for one another that seriously radiates from them both as soon as they are in eyesight of each other.

I do have to say that Kingsbrook Estate is my new favourite wedding venue, yes please I want to shoot there again!

I asked Fiona + Brad this week what the most memorable parts of the day for them where for them..
+ When the bouquets came and I was crying and Teegan came down stairs wondering what was wrong but I was just crying over flowers
+ Getting out of the car and seeing my dad crying
+ Seeing each other for the first time that day
+ Sam climbing that gate to make sure we got the full Kingsbrook in the photo haha
+ Going down to the beach and just getting away for a bit to be with each other
+ Crying during our first dance
+ After the first dance how we were all dancing and everyone made a circle so that I could dance with the bridesmaids and Brad could dance with his groomsmen
+ The day was just absolutely perfect

Fiona’s FAV moment was definitely their first dance it was so perfect and it was nice to just focus on Brad dancing and crying

Brad’s FAV moment: Seeing Fiona walk down the Isle for the first time. She looked incredible and blew me away!

You know I love the “how they met story” here is their’s by Fiona…
Brad and my story isn’t the conventional meeting/falling in love. We met through mutual friends one night when he was seeing one of my friends at the time. Fast forward a year and that friend had moved to Queensland after never really hitting anything off between them. That night I ran into him at the local Murray bridge pub and we danced for a while, I was very impressed with his shuffling. After we decided to go home together. After that night we were basically inseparable and spent the next 3 nights together. And its been like that ever since…

Fiona + Brad, we had an absolute blast and cant thank you and your bridal party enough for such a fun memorable day and being dead-set legends. The epitome of #JNCOUPLES

Wishing you both all the very best with your new house, lot of overseas travelling trips, and lots of love and laughter and making special memories along the way… xx

Wedding dress: Sophia Tolli
Bridesmaid dresses: Adrianna Papell
Shoes: Betts
Jewellery: Maya Valentino
Florist: Samantha Burnell from Fab functions
Cake: Sugar Avenue Cakes
Wedding Celebrant: Joylene Goldsworthy
Makeup Artist: Melissa Nicole
Venue: Kingsbrook Estate
Photographer: Jade Norwood

Amelia and Josh became husband and wife in gorgeous style at Mount Lofty House infront of a beautiful wooden arbor decorated with amazing florals that emulate the koala food that Amelia collects for her work. The weather had a few people on edge, it was sunny one minute and gloomy and raining the next. As Milly’s Dad walked her down the isle it was spitting with a little rain, but that didn’t dampen the moment. A few moments later the sun was shining as they kissed as Mr and Mrs Whitbread for the first time.

We really did have an absolute blast, so many laughs and hilarious moments. There was a magician entertaining guests while the bridal party had photos and before he left he came and performed a trick for the bride and groom.

I just loved that “Hank” their dog was featured on the cake topper, love love!! And I loved the surprise koala bowtie!

The next couple of days after the wedding I asked the couple to share with us their favourite moments from their wedding day…
Josh’s favourite moment/s was:
+Seeing Milly in her dress for the first time was pretty special. She looked beautiful
+Seeing the cake with the cake topper was pretty cool also seeing how all that came together because I wasn’t allowed to see the cake topper before hand as it had the imagine with Milly’ s dress.
+Spending time with close friends and family

Amelia’s favourite moments:
+The ceremony was a special moment as the sun came out just for our vows and looked amazing. Seeing my pop at the ceremony was also very special as he had been having health issues in recent months and it meant the world to have him there.
+Josh’s speech was also very special knowing how long he spent practicing and seeing how well he delivered it. I could never have done that!
+Another favourite moment was our first dance, we had a lot of fun with it and we loved our song.
+Another moment that involved the dance floor that night, we thought this was hilarious was that the dance floor began to break a part – our guest literally ripped up the dance floor hehehe

I can’t thank you both enough for allowing us to be part of your special day and we wish you health, love and happiness for the future.

JNxx