Melissa and Anthony- The Celebration

by Polkadot Bride

How beautiful is today’s wedding? I spent a lot of my childhood in the country with rust brown soil, I can almost smell the atmosphere at Melissa and Anthony’s wedding! Location was particularly important to Melissa and Anthony.

Melissa recounts “We were looking for somewhere that could cater for both the ceremony and the reception. The Canberra region has fabulous restaurants and wineries and one of our favourite things to do is discover new places to eat. We fell in love with the food and rustic atmosphere at Grazing. ”

Melissa recounts “We had our wedding bands made by Jason Ree. Anthony’s wedding band was a Ghost Gum silver and palladium Mokume Gane band and mine was a knife edge platinum band which matched with my engagement ring.”

Melissa says “We had the reception in the Stables at Grazing. The Stables have beautiful stone walls and high pitched dark timber ceilings. It also has an attached garden marquee which accommodated our 104 guests. The weather on the day was so perfect that we were able to open up the garden marquee which has beautiful views out over the garden (where much of Grazing’s organic produce is grown) and across the rural landscape.”

The three tier caramel mud cake was made by Cakes Of Your Dreamsand topped with a custom cake topper by My Face Figurines.

Food was a priority to Melissa and Anthony, she says “We enjoyed a divine lunch (food and wine is important to us!) of twice-cooked pork belly or steamed cabbage dumplings filled with quail, pork and pine nuts for entrée. For main course we had the choice of beef cheeks, slowly cooked or a crisp confit of duck. For dessert we had our wedding cake which was a caramel mud cake (the cake topper was quite a hit). Grazing sourced fabulous local wines to celebrate with.” The bonbonniere boxes and invitations were created by Melissa usingCristina Re paper.

Melissa says “The bonbonniere boxes were small card boxes topped with miniature gardenia scented wooden flowers. Inside the boxes were the traditional five sugared almonds (representing health, wealth, happiness, long life and fertility) and a small love note which came fromCompendium Stationery. Anthony and I both wrote on the back of each note.”

The tables were dressed with menu cards and bonbonniere boxes for each guest, vases of double white ranunculus and beautiful Marseille Gardenia Glasshouse Candles which provided the room with a beautiful soft gardenia fragrance.

Melissa, Anthony and their guests enjoyed their lunch reception before heading back to Canberra to celebrate further with guests. “The formalities were overseen by my older and only brother Michael (he was hilarious). My dad made a speech as did Anthony’s middle brother (David) and Anthony. All of the speeches were fabulous – my father’s funny, beautiful and from the heart – didn’t leave many dry eyes in the house. David’s speech was hilarious, this time leaving people crying with laughter.”

Thankyou for sharign your beautiful wedding day with us today Melissa and Anthony! All the best in your married life together!

Photos by Candice Ottaway for O Photography

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20th

Jul

Melissa and Anthony

by Polkadot Bride

Melissa and Anthony

Good morning lovely readers! We’ve been a bit quiet on the Polka Dot front but we’ve been working feverishly behind the scenes to get some finishing touches and brand new features completed!

Now that we have our brand spanking new site, I can show off some of the weddings that were waiting just for this moment. It is SO exciting having such a gorgeous site to show them off!

First up is the wedding of Melissa and Anthony which took place in Gundaroo in New South Wales. It’s so beautifully Australian- glamorous, laid back with that beautiful country backdrop.

Melissa and Anthony met through a mutual friend “A good friend introduced us. The first time we met it was a set up but she didn’t tell either of us so it just didn’t work out. A year or so later she decided to be much less covert and arranged for us to go on a date. The rest is history! We married a week short of our first date three years earlier.”

Today’s photos are by Candice Ottaway for O Photography.

Melissa wore a black and white, one shouldered, Lisa Ho gown with a custom headpiece made by Christina Waring Millinery. She says “One of the few traditional things about the day was the something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. My old were my grandmother’s earrings, new was my dress (shoes and headpiece), borrowed was an antique lace hankie and my blue was a blue bird broach of my mother’s which I had pinned to my bra.”

Melissa and Anthony hired buses to transport everyone from Canberra and back, Melissa says “It was very important that our wedding have a relaxed atmosphere and we wanted our guests to enjoy the day and not have to worry about logistics so we provided transport to and from the wedding. Many of the traditional aspects of weddings didn’t appeal to us but we did insist that the trip on the way out was strictly gender specific – we had a bus for the boys and a bus for the girls!”

Melissa and Anthony has a string quartet (Just Add Red Quartet) who played Pachelbel’s Canon as she walked down the aisle with her parents to the ceremony in the grounds of the Royal Hotel which is a beautiful, historic restaurant in a restored 1865 pub about 30 minutes out of Canberra.

Melissa says “It was important for us to have our parents play central parts in the ceremony. My mother and father (Florence and Terry) accompanied me down to Anthony which was along a rose petal path. Jennifer (Anthony’s mother) was his witness (Sarajane, my best friend, was mine). Anthony’s youngest brother (Paul) did a reading at the ceremony.”

The ceremony was officiated by Anthony’s cousin, Liz Little, who traveled from Queensland for the event. For the wedding, Anthony wore a Bespoke by Italian Taylor suit in charcoal with a Ted Baker tie.