A T L A N T A + M A X I M I L L I A N

When Max and Atlanta started dating, Max would text Atlanta daily at about 10am. Atlanta would wait in anticipation and each time it came through, her entire office cubicle would cheer! That's when she realised she was onto something special. The couple's wedding was a sweet Australian escape to a bygone era with vintage and antique décor. Their wedding guests joined in on the fun, dressing up to suit the theme!

F R O M T H E B R I D E

We first met...

Max and I first met through mutual friends when I was 19, even though he lived interstate. One of my bridesmaids told me that I would always refer to him as 'that really nice guy from Canberra', which shows that he definitely left a good impression early on.

We knew it was love...

After barely a handful of dates, Max started to text message me daily at around 10am. I would wait in anticipation for the daily message and soon my whole office cubicle would cheer each time it came through. I knew it was something special.

However a favourite story is the time he tried to tell me he loved me for the first time. Max was so nervous that at the last moment he slipped in an extra word: 'Atlanta...I think I love you'. I promptly replied with 'Max...I know I love you' - much to his relief, and I will never let him live it down!

The proposal...

In 2015, Max and I were amazingly lucky to win a ballot and spend two months at sea learning to crew the Sail Training Ship, the Young Endeavour, as it made a voyage around the world. Max spent two months sailing from Rio de Janeiro to Spain, before we swapped and I sailed from Turkey to England. The night I flew home after four months apart, Max was wearing a beautiful suit and had scattered red silk rose petals up the drive way and throughout the house leading to the bedroom. On one knee Max proposed, holding out a beautiful wood box he made himself. After much delightful exclamations of 'Yes, Yes, Yes' he showed me an esky in the walk-in-robe which held a bottle of 2004 Moet and Chandon to celebrate the occasion. I have never experienced a better bottle of champagne!

T H E W E D D I N G

Our photographer...

After countless hours of searching photographers online and receiving quotes, we found images by photographer Tom McEvoy. His images were so unique due to his use of vivid fairy tale-like colour and vintage poses and tones, which perfectly matched our wedding theme. He also mixes digital photography with hand crafted art to make amazing works of art. When we received our photos back, we couldn't believe how he captured the vibrant colours and beauty of the day, and perfectly depicted our own fairy tale.

Our dream wedding...

Ever since I was a child I dreamed about getting married on my parent's property, called 'Candlebark,' where I grew up. I knew it was the most beautiful and personal location and that nothing could ever rival it. We also wanted to be outdoors surrounded by nature, and particularly wanted a festive, relaxed and joyful atmosphere for the wedding. Furthermore, I love all things vintage and antique and we were both excited to weave this love through our wedding. We even invited guests to dress up in a vintage style if they wanted to join in the theme, and many arrived with pearls, petticoats, parasols, vests and pocket squares.

Ceremony location...

When Max and I started dating we spent a lot of time at Candlebark where he also fell in love with the house, gardens, hills and waterways. From the outset we knew that we would marry at Candlebark and chose to have our ceremony in front of the dam for its stunning setting and vista's. We found our celebrant through family friends, and Guy Gurney was a warm, inviting, and genuine celebrant that we adored and recommend to everyone. We were his 100 ^th ceremony!

Reception venue...

We wanted to keep the reception on the property so guests could spend time exploring the property and gardens between the ceremony and reception. We hired a beautiful large peg-and-pole marquee from a local company called North Central Hire, complete with 300m of fairy lights, a dance floor and a wonderful band who played through the night, called Kahuna Daddies. My father lit the big gum trees surrounding the marquee with spotlights and it was an absolutely magical scene.

Pre-wedding celebrations... The bridal party...

As we were living interstate from our wedding venue, we decided to have two engagement celebrations, one in Melbourne and one in Adelaide. In Adelaide we organised a bus wine tour through the Barossa Valley with 20 close friends, and had an amazing time doing group tastings and eating fabulous food. Max's parents hosted our formal engagement party complete with friends, family and our favourite family tradition...coal roasted gyros cooked in the backyard.

The bridesmaids wore...

Max and I had five bridesmaids and groomsmen, all of whom were close friends. Max and his best man had been friends since age 6, and I had also been a bridesmaid at my matron of honours wedding. Sadly, my matron of honour moved overseas prior to the wedding, so we decided she would still be my bridesmaid from 'afar'. Furthermore, two days out from the wedding another of my bridesmaids sadly couldn't make it for family reasons, so another friend stepped in to save the day and I was still surrounded by special and amazing women whose friendship is priceless.

The groom and groomsmen wore...

As my bridesmaids were scattered across Australia, and two would be having babies before the wedding, we had to be practical and innovative with our dress choice. We decided that a custom online dress would be the best option and after months of searching, found an amazing online shop on Etsy called 'Amordress'. The dress's fitted the vintage theme and were deep blue to match my sapphire blue engagement ring. They were tea length, fitted with a petticoat for flair, and had a stretchy back to accommodate for everyone's needs. My bridesmaids were extremely happy and we had a lot of comments about how beautiful the dresses were!

The dress...

The groom and groomsmen were attired by Ed Harry's Wedding range. This was extremely convenient, as the groomsmen also lived across Australia and could pick up the chosen outfit from their local store. As we knew the day was likely to be warm, and we wanted a relaxed vintage style, the men opted for charcoal grey pants and vests, brown leather shoes and white shirts rolled up to the elbow. I handmade the men's boutonnieres which were paper flowers cut from a romance novel, surrounded with lace and blue ribbon (to match the bridesmaids) and fastened with two strong magnets. I also made boutonnieres for all the immediate male family members, and guests apparently had a great time trying to read the words on the paper flower petals.

Wedding flowers...

A year out from the wedding myself and three close friends took to the bridal boutiques. I had a clear vision in mind: nothing strapless, no long train, and preferably a tea length dress. However, as soon as we started trying dresses on, everything changed! While I loved the tea length dresses, it was a style I wore all the time and it didn't feel quite 'special' or 'womanly' enough for me for 'the big day'. We were at Jenny & Gerry's Bridal Centre in Adelaide where I first tried on the dress. I instantly felt womanly and elegant in the unembellished, strapless, fit-and-flair ivory gown by 'Beautiful Bridal', and it played in my mind for days and two more fittings before I knew it was the one. Originally the dress was a two part ensemble with a full lace overlay. However, as I was in love with only the under layer, I was able to order just this, and the Bridal Centre continually expressed how inspired and unique my choice was. As my mother had a silk flower on the waist of her wedding dress, I was inspired to replicate this, and found that a small silk flower worked perfectly on the gown in tribute to my amazing mum.

Reception décor...

I always knew that I wanted to express my love for the Australian outdoors and our wedding venue by having Native bouquets. Furthermore, we were fortunate to source these flowers and foliage from my parent's garden, adding yet another extremely personal aspect to the day. On the wedding morning, my bridesmaids and myself picked a large basket of flowers and foliage and there was a hilarious moment when one particularly artistic bridesmaid kicked us all off the job and proceeded to make the most beautiful bouquets for us all by herself. It was a joy to have such reliable and creative friends.

The originally conceived wedding colour palate was blue and silver to match my engagement ring. However as the planning progressed we altered the palate to better blend in and reflect the wedding venue. The final palate was deep greens, rustic brown and wood tones, with hints of blue.

As guests entered the reception marquee, each table was simply laid with an eco-friendly pressed palm leaf plate sitting on a large paper doily and deep green serviette. The bomboniere bottles were deep green with a rustic brown label which also served as the guests place cards. In the centre of the table sat a blue-willow tea cup and saucer with a floating scented candle of lime and grapefruit, table numbers made out of reclaimed Jarrah wood, and a champagne ice bucket tied with brown paper and string. Above hung 300m of fairy lights and five hanging wreaths of native flowers and olive branches which were made and installed by the bridesmaids and groomsmen. Fairytale!

We purchased four wheels of cheese from a local delicatessen called Mothers Pantry and created a cheese wheel stack for our wedding cake: pecorino, truffle cheddar, King Island blue brie and a Clarins brie. My new sister in law was very artistic and decorated the stack with roses from my mother's garden, while the whole stack sat on a large stone grinding wheel.

We decided on a sit-down meal, where entrée platters were served to the table and main course and dessert were a buffet. We catered the entrées and desserts, and hired a wonderful company to come to the property and cook and serve the main meal.

The entrée was local smoked trout and a cream cheese and roasted vegetable crepe layer cake. For the main meal a company called Travel'n Pizza set up a gyros on site and cooked chicken and lamb over coals, served with warm pita bread, coleslaw, Greek salad, hummus and tzatziki. Dessert was a selection of the wedding cheeses served with quince paste, alongside mountains of lemon tarts, baklava and chocolate truffles made by family members.

Memorable moments...

As the theme of the wedding was definitely to make everything as personal and handmade as possible, we decided to barrel age our own Tokay and bottle this at home for our guests. We purchased a 20L bottle of 3-5 year aged Tokay from Seppeltsfield Wines in the Barossa Valley, and used our 8L barrel at home to age three batches over four months each. We added extra flavours such as rum to enhance it, and everyone raved about the bonbonniere.

To honour Max's Greek heritage, during the ceremony his mother placed two crowns on our head made from olive branches, tied together by ribbon from my mother's wedding dress. Being connected in this way both symbolically and physically was so beautiful, and the words that were first spoken as the crowns were placed on our heads was a traditional Greek proverb: "the heart that loves is always young". Truly unforgettable.

Wedding soundtrack...

My nephew Casper was the flower boy and was encouraged to throw rose petals as he walked down the hill by placing a chocolate bar at the bottom of the basket. However, a quarter of the way down with the first bridesmaid, he grabbed the chocolate from the bottom of the basket and sat down refusing to move. With 100 sets of eyes on him he wouldn't budge, so mum was soon to the rescue and the procession continued to everyone's mirth.

I walked down the aisle to 'Your Song' from Moulin Rouge (originally Elton John) and we signed the register to 'I just can't help falling in love with you' by Elvis Presley. A fantastic two part band called The Kahuna Daddies played Lounge music into the evening which had every one dancing and created an amazing vibe in the marquee.

Later into the evening when it was just the bridal party and friends remaining in the marquee, the hits of the 80s and 90s did feature and the 'Macarena', 'Zorba' and 'Nutbush city limits' were a highlight.

The honeymoon...

M A R R I E D L I F E

This is one of the best stories of our wedding experience...When I was reading a beautiful book from my mother about wedding traditions, I found a passage stating it was the groom's responsibility to organise the honeymoon. I instantly loved the idea and Max was happy to take charge. We had discussed three weeks in New Zealand and he set to planning. However, when I arrived at the airport at 5am, packed with clothes for New Zealand, Max announced that we were going to 'record a video' to thank everyone for our wedding. Then, on camera, he told me we were flying to Japan (not New Zealand) and we were flying Business Class!!!

Future plans...

I was in absolute shock and found out that everyone at the wedding knew and had enjoyed giving me advice about 'New Zealand' all evening. The plan changed when Max found out my Matron of Honour couldn't make it home from Japan to be at the wedding, so we visited her and her family on our honeymoon. Max has now gained a reputation as an amazing (and sneaky) secret keeper!

In 40 years we hope to...

In a few years we hope to start a family, and one day buy a property to build our own small hobby farm like our parents. As I have taken Max's surname, we have decided that one day our property will be called 'Townsend', to honour my maiden name.

Be happy, surrounded by creativity, continually inspiring each other and be in love. (And if Max gets his way...sailing around the world on a Yacht!)

The engagement...

W E D D I N G W I S D O M

Planning...

Try to spend time with everyone that you are inviting to the wedding to cement friendship and make more meaningful memories

On the day...

Try to do as much you can yourself in advance, but also realise that you cannot do everything. Originally I wanted to cater the wedding ourselves, however was talked out of it by a friend who is a chef/event organiser. Having Travel'n Pizza come onsite to prepare the meal was priceless and gave us so much more time to spend with family and friends during the lead up to the wedding.

Always hold hands and try to experience every moment together so you share the same memories. This advice was given to us by friends recently married and we loved it and saw the beauty and meaning in the advice. It definitely worked for us!

Photography: Tom McEvoy Photography / Music: The Kahuna Daddies / Catering: Travel'n Pizza & Mothers Pantry / Hire: North Central Hire / Wedding celebrant: Guy Gurney / Wedding gown: Jenny & Gerry's Bridal Centre / Bridesmaid's gowns: Amor Dress / Suits: Ed Harry / Eco plates: Going Green Solutions / Hair: Allison Brudenell, Alli the Hair Lady / Makeup: Amanda Lissant-Clayton, Alchemy Makeup Artistry