S A M & A M A N D A
{iSTYLE Photography}
F R O M T H E B R I D E ...
The Meeting...
Sam and I met through a mutual friend. It was actually his birthday and he was out in Manly with friends. I had never been to Manly before, but decided to go out with a girlfriend and have some lunch. I bumped into another friend of mine who asked me to stay for a drink. From there Sam and I hit it off and he asked me out on a date the next day! We have a little running joke that I went to Manly for the first time and picked up a husband!
Love...
We knew pretty quickly that it was love. There was so much in common including our outgoing personalities, our love and respect for family and friends and we were both from Italian families so understood each others values. The first time we told each other was about 4 months into the relationship when I received a beautiful bunch of red roses at work from Sam and the card read “I have fallen in love with you” I still have the card and whenever there is a special occasion, Sam always sends me flowers from the same florist as he knows they are now my favourite!
The Proposal...
We got engaged after six years together. Sam and I had discussed getting married so he wanted to make the proposal a surprise. If he planned something over the top he knew I would have caught on so he wanted to make sure I was completely thrown off guard. We had a huge family dinner at his parents place one night. Sam is always trying to take centre stage so I assumed he was giving another one of his speeches and I even remember laughing and saying ‘ok Sam sit down now!’ but then he got down on one knee and proposed in front of everyone. It was truly beautiful, he talked about how important family was and how I had become a part of that and I was just blown away.
Wedding Style...
We had been to so many Italian weddings and whilst we wanted to keep some of the family traditions as part of our day, we knew we wanted something totally different. We had recently been to Sam’s sisters wedding in Thailand and loved the idea of being on holidays for a wedding. We wanted everyone to get away for a weekend and be really happy and relaxed at our wedding so somewhere out of Sydney was a must for us. We wanted it to be outside, in a marquee somewhere in the country. We didn’t have a specific theme but my dress was a blush colour so I wanted everything to be white, cream and soft pinks and peaches.
Wedding Ceremony + Reception Venue...
Both the ceremony and reception were held at Terrara House Estate. I found Terrara House online and we went down one weekend and fell in love instantly, the grounds are incredible and being in marketing I was really trying to find somewhere that I knew our photos would turn out amazing and different. We booked it the next day!
The Dress...
I knew I wanted lace, but because lace was so popular at the time, I also wanted it to be very different. My dress was the first one I tried on and I fell in love straight away. It was a blush colour with a lace fitted bodice and the bottom flared out with thousands of hand-sewn pieces of tulle. It was made by Allure Bridals, but purchased from Spurling.
Bridesmaids...
They wore navy full length dresses with a cream embellished top section that I purchased from Forever New.
Groom & Groomsmen...
Navy is my favourite colour at the moment and it worked perfectly with my dress so we chose a navy suit, with white shirt, cream tie and patent leather belt and shoes for Sam and the groomsmen wore the same but with navy ties. We purchased the suits, shirts and ties for the guys to keep as a thank you gift for being a part of our special day and they were thrilled about this!
The Flowers...
My dad owns a coffee shop that backs onto the Sydney Flower Markets at Homebush so I have grown up around flowers. Since I was about 8 years old, I have loved visiting the flower markets and wandering through all the stalls. One of the first things I told Rosi from Terrara House was that I wanted to go over the top with flowers, I wanted to see them absolutely everywhere – she said that was fine and I remember coming to the rehearsal 2 days before the wedding and Rosi telling me she spent 11 hours trimming roses stems and only now realised how serious I was about flowers everywhere! I did struggle with one aspect of my flowers as I am obsessed with Peonies and they weren’t in season in February so I worked with Rosi and we came up with the idea of using fresh David Austen roses and white Freesias teamed with real to touch artificial Peonies throughout the wedding and my bouquets were a mix of the roses and peonies, they were quite big and to tie in with the country theme, we had twine wrapped around the stems.
Decorating...
Everything was very neutral with whites, creams, soft pinks and peaches. Rosi has beautiful country china settings for the plates and cutlery and crystal wine goblets and glassware so we went with that. We had round tables with beautiful white iron chairs as part of Terrara House’s set up. I also went a little glitter crazy so there were candlesticks coated in glitter with flowers in them and lots of little vases and candleholders that were also done in glitter. We had lots of low round arrangements with some taller ones on a flower table as you entered the Marquee and low centrepieces on the table. Along with the incredible canopy at the ceremony and the aisle made of rose petals, plus the floral seating chart at the marquee entrance. Lots of my guests took home centrepiece arrangements and have kept the peonies after I told them they were artificial. It's always quite funny when I visit a family or friends house and our wedding flowers are in their homes!
Paper Lily came up with a pretty unique guest book idea for us. To go with our wishing well, we had a wishing tree. Next to the tree was loads of antique keys with twine and tags that said “The key to a happy marriage is…” and guests could write a little message for us. It's so beautiful and we have the tree with all the tags hanging in our house. We also have about 30 tags left over so we decided that on every wedding anniversary we would write one together.
Terrara House were incredible, they looked after all the flowers, catering and our stunning cake. Paper Lily did all our wedding stationary and I was very hands on and did all the decorations myself. A lot of things were purchased from Etsy and I put them together at home. We basically turned our house into an art studio in the month leading up to the wedding and my bridesmaids were fantastic and came over for a few late nights of arts and crafts!
On the Menu...
We had a sit down meal. I loved the idea of share platters so everything came out in the middle of the table for guests to choose what they wanted. Terrara House was great and offered a return service, so once the platter was finished if the guests wanted more of something they would bring another platter out. We had hot and cold seafood platters to start, then a pasta entrée which was two different platters of pasta, mains was beef and chicken platters then dessert. Plus wedding cake and coffee – Everyone was very well fed and still talk about the food at our wedding!
Wedding Bomboniere…
Our bomboniere was quite special to us. There is a little Italian restaurant around the corner from our house and the owner is a lovely Italian man who we have become great friends with. He homemade limoncello for us to fill little glass bottles with and Paper Lily did little tags with our names and wedding date on them.
Wedding Photography...
Before I was engaged, I went to a wedding expo at Darling Harbour with a friend of mine who was getting married. As we walked through the stands we were both drawn to a video that was playing on a TV in front of iSTYLE’s stand. The video went for 9 minutes, we didn’t move the whole time and by the time it was finished, we both had tears. I knew I would book them for my wedding one day! A few months later I was engaged and it was one of the first suppliers I was able to lock in straight away!
Because I am in marketing I wanted something different, something really spectacular that I could hang on my wall and it would look like art not just a wedding photo. I think iSTYLE really captured that for me, their work is pretty amazing. I also like that they tell a story with their photos, from the moment they jumped in the car to drive South, they captured great shots along the way which portrays ours and our guests journey down to our wedding away!
Memories...
Our wedding day really was a fairytale. It exceeded every expectation we had and was perfect in every way. The beautiful memories I will cherish forever were walking down the aisle with my dad, stopping to give my grandfather a kiss along the way and of course seeing Sam’s face! Plus seeing all the smiling faces of friends and family.
Wedding Night...
Terrara House has these beautiful stables on the estate which are done up so quaint. They have the perfect warm country feel to them and we spent our first night here. We also hired out The Willows house and cottage at Melross Farm for our family and us to stay for a week. It sleeps 16 people so was perfect for Sam and my immediate family to all be together.
Wedding Songs...
Our flowergirls walked down the aisle to A whole new world from Aladdin, our bridesmaids to How long will you love me by Ellie Goulding and I walked down to Marry Me by Train. There were loads of tears from our guests after those two songs played it was just beautiful! Our first dance was to Overjoyed by Matchbox 20. It was nice that it was something different that people hadn't really heard before. For entertainment we had a live band play during the reception.
Honeymoon...
We waited until July and went around USA, Mexico and Hawaii for 6 weeks.
Life After the Wedding...
We purchased a house in Balgowlah together a few years ago now so are still living there. We have started some renovations on our house and once those are complete I guess the next step for us will be looking to start a family.
Photography iSTYLE Ceremony + Reception Venue Terrara House Bride's Dress Allure Bridals from Spurling Bridesmaids' Dresses Forever New Flowers + Cake Terrara House Stationery Paper Lily
MW x
PS. Check out the blog tomorrow for Sam & Amanda's beautiful wedding film!