Real Essense of Australia Bride Danielle + Damien

Everything about real Essense of Australia bride, Danielle’s wedding to long-time boyfriend, Damien was perfectly planned. From her lace wedding gown to the taco bar they served their guests, every decision was completely thoughtful, and true to the couple’s style. Congratulations to this darling duo!

From the bride: Damien and I got engaged after seven years together, with Damien asking me to marry him whilst we were in New York City on a family holiday. It was the perfect proposal in my eyes. We were at the Rockefeller Centre ice skating rink, one of my favourite spots in NYC with its beautiful twinkly lights and joyous atmosphere. My whole family was there with us, my mum & dad and my brother and his girlfriend. We had all just finished ice skating (except for Damien, who sat and watched because he absolutely cannot skate to save his life!), and Damien asked my brother if he could please come and take a photo of him and I standing in front of the ice rink and the Prometheus statue. While we were posing for the photo, and unbeknown to everyone else except my mother, Damien dropped to one knee and pulled out my late grandmother’s ring (which he had a little earlier borrowed from my mum) to ask me to marry him. My brother was able to catch the moment on camera, the rest of my family was there to witness it and the surrounding crowd was quick to congratulate us. It was a very special moment that I will treasure forever.

I would describe my bridal style as relaxed, bohemian luxe. I really wanted to look elegant and modern, but at the same time in something that wouldn’t date. I loved having the sparkly, blingy elements on my dress, which really gave me that luxe feel. The standout feature in my eyes though was the detailed back, I absolutely adore it and never get sick of admiring it in photographs!

I sound like a broken record, but again, I loved my dress shopping experience too. I ended up having three bridal appointments while searching, two appointments at the same place and one at a different. Being from regional Queensland, I chose to keep all of my appointments local, as the quality on offer is just as good here as it is in the big cities.

Originally I only had the two appointments booked, one at each of my top choice bridal stores. Both were within a week of each other. I’m a bit of an over-thinker, so I like to make sure I have as much information as possible before I make a decision I am comfortable with. My goal was to try on as many potential dresses as I could so as I could feel really content with my final decision.

Both stores had beautiful dresses, and I picked out favourites at both. But Gladstone bridal definitely had the edge in really giving that ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ experience. After my two initial appointments, although I had favourites I still didn’t feel like I was ready to commit to one particular dress. I decided to book another appointment at Gladstone Bridal during their Essense of Australia trunk show weekend, where the newest collection of Essense dresses were available for early viewing. The very first dress Kershur (my bridal consultant) put me in, was the one. I knew it, my mum knew it, my two bridesmaids knew it, we all just knew it. I wasn’t sure if other brides were being truthful whenever they said ‘You have that moment and you just know’ but oh boy, I definitely feel like I had that moment. I did proceed to try one more dress on after that, just to be sure I wouldn’t have that same feeling again, but sure enough, I didn’t. Nothing compared to that first dress, so I went and put it straight back on. I felt every bit a bride that day.

Because our ceremony and reception were at the same venue, we really wanted to make sure our styling was cohesive and flowed throughout our entire day. We chose to go with a vintage bohemian luxe theme, using a spring pastel colour palette with accents of metallic gold to tie the ‘luxe’ element in.

We had a garden ceremony in the beautiful courtyard area. The gardens and courtyard were already so well presented that we made a special effort to keep any extra styling to a minimum. We kept with our vintage bohemian luxe feel though, bringing in a vintage signing table set, a circular jute rug to mark our ceremony spot and a specially styled ‘In loving memory’ table for our loved ones who were watching from heaven.

For the reception, we aimed for a relaxed garden party feel, again keeping with our soft boho luxe styling and that touch of vintage. I think it suited our venue beautifully. We had a glasshouse marquee on the lawn, with warm festoon lights spread throughout and French oak wine barrels scattered in front of the marquee to use as standing bars. We opted for a cocktail style reception, so while we still had plenty of available tables and seating, our guests could choose to sit, stand and mingle with whomever they pleased, whenever they wanted. I think my most favourite element of our reception area was the vintage boho lounging area we had set up on the lawn under the stars OR maybe it was the giant floral installation hanging over our bridal table? Hard to pick actually.

Damien and I did stray from the traditional wedding format in quite a few areas to make things our own. We were very upfront with making sure everything was the way we wanted it done, even if it wasn’t quite how it would ‘normally’ be done for a wedding. After all, it was our special day.

We chose not to have a maid of honour or best man, as each member of our bridal party is equally as special to us. Instead, we shared the traditional duties between them all.

I didn’t walk down a traditional ‘isle’ through our guests, as creating one would have taken away from the ceremony set up we loved so much. Instead, I just walked in in front of them all.

Our vows were quite modern and we injected some humour into them, referencing chicken nuggets, first aid kids and dirty hand prints being left on our walls.

We went with a cocktail style reception as opposed to a sit down dinner, but we kept with having a full bridal table, because hey, I didn’t want to miss out on having a bridal table.

We offered our guests complimentary cocktails and a taco bar – because I love cocktails and Damien loves tacos.

Above it all, the one thing that I was really focused on doing was making sure our wedding was just that, OURS. I am not a fan of the ‘what the bride says goes’ way of doing things, and I always made sure Damien and I made 100% of our wedding decisions together. That’s definitely not to say we were always on the same page or that getting to the decisions were easy, but we always made sure to nut them out together and come to a happy medium whenever our ideas differed. This is the same approach we use to get through life and it totally works for us. We both couldn’t be happier with the way everything turned out.

My favourite memory of the day was the atmosphere. We were so happy. Everyone there with us too, was so joyous and excited and genuinely happy to be sharing in our special day with us. Seeing all of our the effort we had put into every little detail and it all coming together made for the most beautiful day. It is really special to know that everything we did, we did on our own terms in our own way. We made it a celebration we would have loved to have been at, even if we weren’t the bride and groom.

Madelyn Holmes Photographics