Joel’s proposal to Becky racked up a few thousand views online and it’s not hard to see why. He surprised his leading lady with a classic tea light trail, a poem of their memories and a custom proposal song. The bride notes that “it wasn’t a sappy love song- think Prince meets Flight of The Concords”. Yep, we can get behind that. Together for seven years, these two knew pretty early on that they’d one day end up tying the knot. Luckily for them, Becky’s childhood friend just so happens to be one of the best wedding photographers in the biz. Scroll down to take a solid peruse through Janneke Storm’s sweet, sweet snaps…
THE VENUE “With my family coming down from the Sunshine Coast and Joel’s family from Sydney, we knew having our wedding somewhere in between would be ideal. We couldn’t go past the Hunter which suited our love of wine and amazing scenery. We had a whole list of venues to check out over a weekend and Circa was literally the first venue we looked at. When we walked on site, Joel turned to me and said, “this is it!”. I couldn’t agree more. It had an amazing history, a rustic feel to the restaurant venue, lovely staff and a classic style chapel.”
THE VIBE “We wanted to make sure it reflected both of our personalities, to keep it sentimental but we also wanted lots of fun. There were three things that were really important for us – good food, good wine, and a pumping dance floor! That led us to the Hunter Valley, which is obviously known for the wineries, our venue at Circa which has an on-site hatted restaurant with farm to fork produce, and locking in our friend and Sydney’s favourite kings cross DJ, Dan De Cares, who ensured there was nobody sitting down once the speeches were done!”
DIY “We knew there would be friends and family from different walks of life in the room and we wanted everyone to come together and mingle. So we decided to customise all the table cards with a challenge written on the back that led each guest to find someone they may not have met before and take a photo together on the many disposable cameras scattered around the tables. Not only did this give us plenty of awesome lo-fi pics from the night, but it was such a fun activity that got everyone running around the room in a buzz. Lots of our guests mentioned it was a highlight.”
LITTLE LOL “From one of our earliest dates we always said we wanted to dress up in matching 80’s tracksuits and hit up the local Bondi Ice Skating rink which makes its way to the beachfront every winter. Years passed and we always walked past the skaters and joked about how we were going to do it one day, but never did. On our wedding day, following his speech, Joel completely surprised me by revealing matching pink and blue silk tracksuits with ‘Just married’ embroidered on the back. It was by far a highlight and put everyone in such good spirits when we wore them for the remainder of the night on the dance floor – it also meant I got to bust some crazy dance moves and not ruin my dress.”
A WORD OF ADVICE “Get started early and make it fun. We would have a glass of red and chip away at it all together, bit by bit. It ended up being completely stress-free with lots of laughs.”
WE WISH WE “There’s nothing we regret about the day, it was literally perfect! The only thing we could have done without was ordering an early bus for our guests – nobody wanted to leave and everyone crammed on the last bus after being kicked off the dance floor chanting for one more song!”
If you’d like to be as chuffed with your wedding pics as Becky and Joel, we recommend getting in touch with photographer extraordinaire and all-round delightful human being Janneke Storm. We have contact details here. Want to see more? You can check out more real weddings Janneke has shot here. We particularly love Simone & Fred’s country wedding which you can find here. But first…
CONTRIBUTING VENDORS Photographer Janneke Storm Cinematographer Michael Kelly Florist Blooms on Darby Venue & Catering Circa 1876 Wedding Favours Darrell Lea Entertainment Dan De Cares, Reigan Derry Celebrant Greg Crowe (friend) Transport Rover Coaches BRIDE Dress Pallas Couture Loungewear Bras N Things, Cotton On Shoes Novo Earrings Holly Ryan Hair Ali Hooper via Bixie Colour Makeup Harlotte Bridesmaid Dresses Zimmermann, Shona Joy, Hello Molly GROOM Suit & Bow Tie P. Johnson Hat Nick Fouquet Shoes Brunello Cucinelli