Info for fellow engaged types
A collection of links and stuff to help other engaged people. Most of the vendors are in Perth but the advice may be generally useful. Some of this info came from lj communities and australian wedding forums. Photos of the wedding are on Flickr.
- Summary
- Plan of the day
- Files
- Vendors:
- Ceremony
- Reception
- Caterers
- Flowers
- Dresses
- Accessories
- Cake
- Rings
- Other
- None or free
Summary
The menu on the left has links to more detailed information. Each section has a link to where I discuss the cost and quality of the supplier, possibly give a photo, and list any other options we considered. We only just got married so this is a work in progress! Photos await the groom organising them.- Date: Saturday 21 April 2007
- Theme: Stars and moons and suns, oh my!
- Colours: white and blue.
- Ceremony and Reception:Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club
- Dresses: Into Camelot Fairytale with Eowyn sleeves, gold-white fabric and cream detailing. Bridesmaids in blue and silver, slightly different style.
- Hairdresser and makeup: Bridal hair and makeup Up.
- Flowers: Paulik Flowers White teardrop bouquet.
- Invitations: Made ourselves, materials and ideas from Starfish lane.
- Caterer: Temptations Wedding Buffet
- Cake: Sugarblossom designs
- Celebrant: Graham Lambert
How the day went
Morning
My fiance drove me to my bridesmaids house at about 11 (she was going to pick me up but had to stay to meet the the florist, who'd gotten lost) I stayed there, ate healthy food (I had a cold!) and got ready. Hairdresser arrived about 12:30. Meanwhile my fiance and the groomsmen set up the tables and balcony at the venue from around 1pm.
Ceremony
I and my bridesmaids arrived about ten minutes early and were rushed into a little room. We then waiting about 15 minutes for late guests, grr. We had a short ceremony with vows we wrote ourselves based on ideas from a booklet our celebrant gave us, with no readings or extra sand ceremonies or whatever. We then stood where we were and got congratulated by everyone (So Many Hugs!), then went down to the grass for photos.
This suited us since we're not very traditional or sentimental.
Reception
We had pre-dinner drinks and hors deuvres, then dinner, speeches (my mum was the only one who volunteered to do one but of course a few more family members jumped up at the last minute), cake cutting, dessert, wedding cake served with tea and coffee. FORGOT TO DO DANCING. We suck :) Some of the guests decided to dance anyway but most were too self conscious especially since the music was too quiet.All in all things worked pretty well. The relaxed informal feel of the reception meant people felt free to wander about to different tables and chat which is what we wanted. The lack of much of an explicit plan and me being sick meant my husband had to organise pretty much everything which meant some stuff got forgotten, but nothing vital.
Files
- Placecards Actual file available on request but it's a big photoshop thing.
- Invites A word document, formatted as per the advice of Starfish Lane.
Vendors
Ceremony Venues
- Supplier: Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club balcony
- Cost: $300 by itself I think, but was included in the cost of renting the larger room for the reception.
- Picture:View of Indian tea rooms and beach but a little crowded
- Verdict: Great. Small and rather plain, but a nice view, kept the sun off, and very convenient for the reception. People just hung around upstairs until the pre-dinner drinks, chatting.
Rejected venues
- Perth Zoo Didn't actually check it out but it sounds interesting. Unfortunately has compulsory caterer (Mustard) we don't like the look of.
- Cottesloe Civic Centre Gorgeous grounds but..wouldn't let us use The Perfect Room for ceremonies, and also uses Mustard.
- Sandalford The rooms are quite nice, just a bit far away given we didn't find any reception places we really liked up that way.
- Maritime museum, specifically the Shipwreck galleries. Ok, but a little church-hall-esque.
- Oceanus So Expensive.
- Sunken Garden Not actually inside as such.
- The bell tower Don't be silly :) Still, it's certainly unique.
- Fremantle prison It's a prison. Also I'm not sure if it's any good for ceremonies.
- The Church Retaurant. A decommisioned chapel is still a chapel.
Venues for the reception
- Supplier: Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club
- Cost: $900 for the room, plus drinks by consumption.
- Verdict: Fantastic! The view was gorgeous and meant we didn't have to decorate. The staff were apparently a little slow to bring around drinks which is odd given we were paying by consumption. Not having a sound system was mildly annoying. I was worried 50 people would get lost in the big room but it looked ok.
- Photos:View of the ocean and beach, lots of room
Recommendations
- Mulberry farm from Lisa.
- Point Walter Golf Course from several people online.
- Nedlands Yacht Club Some random forum I came across googling for something else :)
Rejected but worthwhile
If I don't say otherwise, they just had too restrictive numbers policies.- WA Rowing Club Pretty good, just a little rickety and small balcony. Also Perth=no parking.
- Perth Flying Squadron yacht club Not as pretty, expensive alcohol. Still pretty good.
- The Hyatt
- Caversham House They were charging too much for the one (very) decent ceremony spot.
- East Perth Yacht Club.
- Tawarri EVERYONE keeps saying this place is good.
Inspirational but impossible
- A cruise on the "Miss Sandalford"
- Gershwin's at the Hyatt They don't do buffet. Also crazy expensive, only for small groups etc. But very pretty :)
- The Art Gallery $1500 just to hire?!
Caterers
- Supplier: Temptations, Wedding Buffet
- Cost: about $40pp (no drinks)
- Verdict: Overall ok. Very helpful in accommodating dietary issues meaning coeliac and vegetarian guests were happy (though they changed their mind on the day about whether or not the desserts were gluten free). VERY slow to respond when their menu changed indicating rather poor organisation. Food was simple and not very pretty but tasted nice and guests seemed happy.
Rejected but worthwhile
- Cherry's Couldn't find any reviews of any sort, and decided we liked Temptations better.
- Grinners Not quite what we're after.
- Anna Gare Not what we're after, but they were SO helpful.
General Guides
- How to self cater your wedding We decided not to :)
Flowers
- Supplier: Paulik Flowers White bouquet.
- Cost: $125 for a teardrop bouquet, $30 delivery
- Verdict: She's a LONG drive to meet up with, but nice (She gave us a bottle of wine!). The flowers were very pretty and just what I asked for.
- Photo
General Guides
Rejected but worthwhile
- Every guest brings a flower to make up the brides bouquet.
Inspirational but impossible
- Creative Impressions Second row, in the middle. Soooo pretty. They're australian too.
Dresses
- Supplier: Into Camelot Fairytale with Eowyn sleeves, gold-white fabric and cream detailing. Bridesmaids wore blue eowyn dresses with silver detailing.
- Cost: $500ish for mine, $300ish for theirs.
- Verdict: Pretty good. Quite open to me changing the detailing to colours they don't usually offer. They took measurements to make it but DON'T make adjustments once it's made. The backs have a thin slit all the way down to the waist which means either your bra shows, you don't wear a bar, or you wear a torsolette (between I and my bridesmaids we did all three). I got a torsolette for $80 from Bra Bar which was ok but had to be safety pinned into place. It looked great: I got a lot of compliments!
- Photo of all three
Inspirational but impossible
Accessories
- Torsolette: The Bra Bar, Perth. "Fine Lines", $80. Quite good, gave structure to the dress, looked nice in the back, stayed up strapless and was low enough in the front.
- Shoes: Into Camelot lace boots, $50. Fit my orthotics and looked very nice. They're apparently not being made any more though.
- Bag: Little white drawstring velveteen thing. Came free with dress, otherwise $10 from Into Camelot. Was very useful for tissues since I had a cold! Photo
- Jacket: Black velveteen "Princess coat" from House of Fetish in Sydney. Bought for about $500 a few years ago. Looked unusual but worked with the dress. Gallery Serpentine does similar stuff too. Photo
- Jewellry: Made my own earrings for around $10 (materials from "Benjamins Beads" and "Amron Bead Shop"). Mother in law unexpectedly gave me her mothers wedding necklace on the day, which by a complete coincidence matched the earrings!
Inspirational but impossible
- Chantel Mallet accessories Very pretty headpieces.
Cake
- Supplier: Sugarblossom designs
- Cost: $300ish
- Verdict: Great! Let us use our own design but came up with helpful ideas to make it better. Tasted good, looked pretty.
- Photo
Rejected but worthwhile
- Glory Box It's worth checking out their show room, it has free cake :)
- Chocolate Art We didn't end up checking them out, but I've heard very good things.
Rings
- Supplier: Mazzucchelli's
- Cost: $120 for mine, $500ish for Cam's
- Verdict: One of the few places to both stock plain womens 9ct white gold rings and have them on sale in January.
Rejected but worthwhile
Inspirational but impossible
Misc
This is the stuff we kind of chose at random.Hair and Makeup
- Supplier: Bridal hair and makeup
- Cost: $60 for each
- Verdict: Great! The hairstyle wasn't quite but I asked for but I think what I asked for was impossible, and it ended up looking really nice anyway.
- Photos: Front and side
Celebrant
- Supplier: Graham Lambert
- Cost: $300ish
- Verdict: Great! Possibly a little informal but friendly and helpful and full of infectious cheer.
Invitations
- Supplier: Starfish lane. Printed and assembled ourselves using their template and materials.
- Cost: About $40 all up for 40ish invites and envelopes (not counting the books of wedding stamps we got from the post office)
- Verdict: This worked quite well and was much cheaper than getting them professionally made. Starfish lane was very helpful and had lots of inspirational examples as well as hints on how to make them. Apparently other places like Collins Craft are cheaper but they were good enough for us.
- Picture: In the final version the centre bit went all the way to the top and bottom. Also the text was slightly different.
Centrepieces
- Supplier: Made ourselves.
- Cost per table:$15ish. $3 bowl from coles, $3 sugar almonds from Kakulas Bros, 4 $2 candleholders plus 10 hour tealights from Leederville Florist Supplies. Designed and printed our own table numbers on the back of cheap cardboard place cards.
- Bridal Table: Bouquet, four tealights-plus-holder. $2ish sugar stars from Spotlight scattered around. A cake shop in Freo sells nicer, more expensive sugar stars.
- Pictures: Mock-up, on the night, bridal table
- Verdict: Very successful! Possibly a little small on the big tables. People enjoyed eating the sugar almonds once they realised they weren't rocks.
Didn't do or did for free
Music
Did ourselves off a laptop via a friends sound system. Worked ok but wasn't paid enough attention and none put up the sound when it was too quiet. Ceremony music was "Bogoroditsye Devo" (A choral piece I and my husband sang in years ago) while reception music was just my "four stars or more" itunes playlist minus anything about death, breakups, etc.Photographer
Got a photographically minded friend to borrow grooms Very Fancy Camera. Worked quite well. Uploaded the first lot of photos onto the laptop after the ceremony where they cycled through on slideshow during the reception which worked great. Forgot to to get guests to upload their cameras' memory cards onto the laptop too but that worked well at friends wedding.Both dads had video recorders, haven't seen the results yet!
Didn't do
- Bonbonierre
- MC or DJ