Anna & Cameron

Anna & Cameron

Married - 4th January 2011

How did you meet?

My first teaching appointment was in Mildura. I had never even heard of the place, so assumed I would never meet my ‘Mr Right’ out there. The principle of the school and her family were very warm and welcoming and would invite me out to dinner, family events and water skiing on a Sunday afternoon. So I spent a lot of time with the Ferry family. At the end of my first year my boss’ nephew, Cameron came up from Melbourne to work and live with his Uncle and Aunty. While I now knew where Mildura was, I still wasn’t holding out much hope for Mr Right. However, now feeling like quite a part of the Ferry family, by default Cameron and I started spending lots of time together. Mr Right started to seem like it wasn’t such a long shot after all! Finally, he asked out me out on our first date. When we were officially together, I learnt the family secret about how his father and all of his uncles picked up their wives at the same school I was teaching at. So I guess it made perfect sense for Cameron to do the same!

The proposal?

With Cameron now working back in Melbourne, our relationship became long distance. He would make the 12 hour journey every weekend to see me. One weekend he seemed to be particularly excited to be visiting. Cameron being an overly extraverted person at the best of times, it wasn’t too out of the ordinary, so I didn’t think too much of it. However, after finishing my daily 30min workout on the treadmill, I found a small hand written note directing me on a treasure hunt. Each new clue was a beautiful love letter to me, telling me how much he loved and cared for me. I was starting to grow suspicious of what he was up to after the first couple of clues, so the excitement was able to build for some time. After about ten clues spread around important places to us, I found Cameron, at the place we first kissed. He was down on one knee, he pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him.

Planning the wedding

Being from Sydney, we originally tried planning the wedding in Sydney, but found it too difficult to plan all the way from Mildura. We decided on Melbourne because at least Cameron lived there and was easier for me to visit if and when it was required. We planned for a long engagement knowing that it was going to be difficult to create my perfect day in a short amount of time. To add to the difficulty all of our chosen bridal party was either interstate or overseas, this required plenty of forward planning and a fair bit of luck. They all had to measure themselves and send the measurements to the dress maker and suit hire place. Luckily, everything was perfect and we didn’t have any unnecessary stressful moments! I developed all my ideas from countless bridal magazines (including Modern Wedding) and the internet during the week. I would discuss them with Cameron on the weekend and then each school holidays would make them happen. Because I didn’t know Melbourne at all and Cameron was working, to make things easier on myself, I researched and found suppliers very close to where he lived. We used a wedding planner in conjunction with a budget which allowed me to keep very close track of our progress and deadlines. With Cameron being a Product Designer, he broke the stereotypical grooms involvement level and was actually very helpful! The holidays were very busy and stressful times, but it was so much fun it didn’t matter! 

The wedding dress

I stumbled upon Catherine R Couture after I had initially been looking at dresses in another Bridal dress shop a few doors up. Without knowing, all the dresses that I had been cutting out of magazines were all dresses from her collection. At the time she was busy, but so friendly and welcoming she made a lasting impression. She loaded me up with more magazines of her dresses and I made an appointment to come back and see her when I would be back in Melbourne again. Trying on all her amazing dresses was so much fun and so hard to just pick one. I was able to narrow down the choice between three dresses, so we decided to create my dress from all my favourite parts of those three dresses.  

My dress was made from a luxurious silk satin, in warm champagne toning.  The lace is an Italian guipure style lace with metallic detailing and pearl and crystal hand beading.  The gown also features silk georgette  draped at the hipline and back neckline cowl .  The gown is created around a vintage theme incorporating a long full train and bias cut skirt.  The bodice is lightly corseted to highlight body shape and the back features pearl beaded drapes to accentuate the cowl feature.

The bridesmaid’s attire

The bridesmaids wore a made to measure soft flowing satin gown in ‘pink champagne’, with pleating to the front of the skirt and a bubble hem. Rouleau straps highlight a deep neckline with a rouched band under the bust and small bow detail to finish off the back zip. They also wore matching shoes from Alan Pinkus and pearl bracelets that matched my dress and accessories from Catherine R Couture. Thankfully, my best friend and maid of honour Holley Ennor is a stylist. I decided not to hire a make-up artist, but purchase all the make-up for the girls and get Holley to use it on the girls. This way, I spent about the same amount of money, but got to keep all the gorgeous make-up. And because she knew me so well, it was easy to get the look I was after. 

The groom’s attire

After settling on the girls outfits we next went about matching the boys to the girls. We found Theodore Fashions Camberwell who were willing to hire out made to measure suits to the boys for hire, with the option of purchasing the suits at a discount after the wedding if the boys wished. We also purchased for each of the boys a made to measure shirt and tie. Theodore Fashions were amazing and took so much stress out of my planning. 

Cameron and his groomsmen were dressed by Theodore Fashions in one of Studio Italia’s newest mid grey herringbone suits. This unique, contemporary 2 button, moderately slim fitting suit has been designed to cater for the needs of both business and special occasional suiting. As an added advantage, the color of this fabric is versatile enough to cater for a wide variety of wedding group color themes and is often referred to as the perfect grey for black and white or color photography. The style of their suits is the St Lukes T87 in the super 100’s fabric 0-100-21. All the boys suits are manufactured by Studio Italia out of 100% fine Australian wool.

The wedding theme 

The weddings theme was created after many hours of research for my ideal dress, both on the internet and in bridal magazines. All of the wedding dresses I like where very simple and clean in design. After my first meeting with Catherine, we realised the style of dress I liked was a classic 1930’s look with very simple but elegant lines to the dress. From this I looked further in to the 1930’s as a source of design inspiration. We looked at Art Deco invitations and venue; however we decided not to make it a total 1930’s look, we wanted to inject more of ourselves into the wedding and that meant creating a more modern and contemporary feel to our day. 

The colour theme developed after I fell in love with one of Catherine R Couture’s bridesmaid’s dress that I found while searching for my dress. The dress was champagne pink and I loved it so much I actually had one made for myself as well as the 4 dresses for the bridesmaids. From there, the colour was chosen, and we simply worked to match everything else in the wedding to those dresses. 

Stationery

Cameron was very involved in the planning and design of the wedding. He was very intent on designing the invitations ourselves and simply getting someone to print them for us. My heart was set on letter pressed stationary, as I thought it so elegant and matched the feel and theme of our wedding. We settled on a Californian base company Yummy Press. The process was actually one of the most difficult aspects of the wedding to get right. Yummy Press provided very professional service with prompt deliveries. In addition to the letter pressed stationary, Cameron had one of his groomsmen’s mothers write in calligraphy all of the names and addresses of our guests. The result was simply stunning.  Some of our guests have framed their invitations instead of throwing them away! 

The wedding cake

Also...

One week before our wedding, on Boxing Day, I was trying to relax and enjoy myself before starting the final push to the big day. I was spending Christmas with the Ferry’s in Mildura and decided to go jump on the trampoline. As I came down for my first bounce, the trampoline fabric broke and I fell through and fractured my ankle. I was devastated and couldn’t believe that this was actually happening to me! The doctor put my foot in a cast and told me it would be there for 6 weeks. I was picturing Cameron carrying me down the isle, hobbling around the reception on crouches, not being able to wear my shoes and certainly not being able to dance the dance we had been practicing for the last 6 months! After 4 days in a cast, in desperation I visited a physio. To my absolute delight, he told me that through daily exercises, strapping, pain killers and regular icing, I would be able to walk on the day. The ceremony was absolute agony in my heels, which I wanted to wear because my dress was hemmed to the height of my heels. I changed to flats half way through the photos and struggled my way through the dance. My ankle still hurts today, so I do wonder sometimes if it was really worth it. But it makes for a good story!

I decided to sing to Cameron in the reception. I sang ‘Song bird’ by Eva Cassidy. Everyone loved it, however it did add some unnecessary stress to the day!

Advice

Don’t have too many events on before the big day. And certainly don’t jump on trampolines a week before the wedding!