Skip to main content

04.04.14

Planning a wedding in just under 2 months, with a 5 month old baby should have been more challenging, but everything slotted into place as if it had been mapped out in our own little destiny handbook.
I knew I wanted it low key and intimate, not just because it was my second trip down the aisle, but that we already had the greatest prize to symbolise our devotion - our daughter Sahana.

Since meeting Julian 4 years ago, it has been a journey unlike any other. I would describe it as I still feel it today, as if we took each others hand and stepped out into the darkness, only to have it light up as our feet touched the floor. I've never known what was ahead of us, and through it all I have learnt a great deal about trust. I know that Julian would tell it very differently, but that is only a testament to how vastly we contrast each other. 
Deciding on all the wedding details was mostly easy because Julian was collectively very cool in leaving it my capable hands ;)
Red Hill is like our little slice of Tuscany down under, so naturally we were inclined to choose a winery for the ceremony and reception. We married at Tuck's Ridge Vineyard on 4th April, surrounded by 30 of our closest family and friends. Sahana cooed and smiled throughout the ceremony, but leaving her for our interval photoshoot amongst the vines proved to be too much for our little lady, and thus the remainder of the evening I spent half naked in the powder room trying to comfort her! It is to be noted here, that I did indeed make my own wedding dress, fully aware that our 6 month old daughter was still breastfeeding - I don't think I could have designed a more inaccessible dress… I blame it on severe sleep deprivation. I had given myself a mere 50 hours over 8 weeks to create a style I would feel comfortable in my post baby body (I spend about 300 hours over 6 months for my clients - just to give you an idea). I didn't quite finish it, but wore it anyway (actually, half wore it for best part of the day!)

I also managed to find time to make Sahana's flower girl dress and both our hair accessories
Saci was my hair and make-up artist, chauffeur and faux bridesmaid, mc, coordinator, babysitter, etc etc
Our rings were from Adam's New York, and Paul's Rosebud
Our best friends Michael & Dani ensured it was legit
Our lovely friend Kacey Daglish was our wedding ceremony photographer
Bouquet and flowers by Rosebud Flowers and Julian wore a Peter Jackson Navy Suit
the best is yet to come...
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

The Man I Was Taught to Fear

There are people we grieve twice in a lifetime. Once for who they were. And once for who we were never allowed to know. My father is one of them. When I was a child, my mother told me he was a paedophile. She didn’t whisper it. She didn’t hesitate. She said it plainly, as fact. As warning. As control. When we misbehaved, she would drop us at the greyhound station and force us to spend sleepless weekends with him. I remember the noise of the station. The way my stomach would knot. The terror that would sit in my chest at night when the lights went out. I was absolutely terrified to sleep. He was a workaholic. Twelve-hour days. Long hours. Absence disguised as provision. He would leave cash on the bench, stockpiles of food in the fridge, and the television on - a wild luxury I couldn’t enjoy because fear had already moved in. At home with my mother, we weren’t allowed a TV at all. Looking back now, my father was unemotional, but never unkind. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t offer hims...
Read more

Versions, and “Versions”

I’ve already written about  The Wiiyaan   as a journalist. That piece lives in the Tweed Weekly . It’s careful, respectful, measured. It honours Bundjalung origin story, place, and the quiet authority of listening. It was written for a broad audience, many of whom - like me - come from settler families, carrying our own histories alongside the land we now call home. But after filing that story, I knew I wasn’t done. Some stories ask something back from you. This one did. So this is the version that doesn’t fit in a newspaper column. This is the version that explains why that exhibition cracked something open in me - why listening to Kyle Slabb speak about holding  one  version of Country, with care and restraint, felt like a mirror I wasn’t expecting. Kyle spoke about perspective. About how this telling is not  the  story, but  a  story - shaped by lineage, responsibility and law. He was clear, careful, and deeply respectful of other versions held...
Read more

The Painter on the hill

I went to meet Scott McDougall deliberately underprepared. This is not how journalists are usually meant to begin. We are supposed to research, cross-check, read the biography, study the exhibition history, arrive with neat questions and enough knowledge to sound vaguely authoritative. But Scott had been recommended to me by artist Hobie Porter, who told me he was someone I might find interesting. That was enough. I did not want to arrive with the internet’s version of him already sitting between us. I wanted to meet the man, see the work, stand in the room where it happened and absorb it without the corruption of other people’s opinions. I am not an art writer. Not really. But I am an artist at heart. A fashion designer by training. A lover of light, texture, form, fabric, structure, composition and the controlled drama of a perfectly judged line. Becoming a journalist has opened a new lens. It has also made me realise how often I underestimate people. My general disappointment in hum...
Read more