Real Wedding – Julia & Yasiru, Elsternwick VIC
For Yas, it was important to celebrate his wedding against a gorgeous natural setting, while Julia wanted to add an old-world, vintage vibe. Rippon Lea Estate provided the absolute best of both worlds, and their classic, romance-filled vision began to take shape.
A long engagement allowed time to carefully curate a whimsical garden party soiree underpinned with timeless elegance. Adding in personal touches, like Julia wearing her mother’s own bridal hat, her mother creating her dreamily chic gown, and including photos of them with each guest as place settings, leant a perfectly personal and sentimental flavour to the celebration in the best possible way.
Central to the styling is the gold accents of the reception space, perfectly harmonised with crisp white florals interspersed with touches of cornflower blue. This is a testament to old-world charm through a fresh modern lens, captured with artful skill by the legendary Motta Weddings.
The meeting.
Neither of us remembers meeting the other, to the point that even the specific year we met is a hazy detail. It was during our early university days, which places the timing at some point in 2011 or 2012, when Julia’s high school friend introduced her to a big group of friends she had made at uni. Yas was part of that group, somehow connected through his own high school friends. Years later, untangling all the connections in that group remains a fun exercise, but to keep it simple, we met at university through a mutual friend.
The ‘one’.
Yas says the moment for him was probably a couple of years into dating when we went to visit his extended family in Sri Lanka. Something about Julia meeting his grandparents and his family taking a shine to her made it feel like the real deal. For Julia, there was no clear ‘this guy is the one’ moment, but she definitely remembers being in her early twenties and thinking how lucky she was in her relationship after hearing a lot of her friend’s dating horror stories. We think both of us took a fairly committed approach to our relationship early on, and we knew that unless anything massive destabilised us, we would simply continue to grow older and (hopefully) wiser together.
The proposal.
Walking past the King’s Domain parklands to our car from a fancy dinner in the city, Yas pointed out a beautifully lit fountain we were passing and said, “that’s a nice fountain, let’s go over there”. Julia was immediately on high alert as Yas did not usually express interest in fountains. As we walked, Yas returned to an earlier conversation we had been having about our relationship and said he wanted to share a few more thoughts. He pulled out a pre-prepared speech on his phone, got down on one knee and popped the question with a beautiful ring.
Planning process.
We had a long engagement which was part calculated, part a consequence of the wedding date we landed on. Because of the time we had to organise everything (just shy of two years), Julia likened the planning process to a marathon, with short bursts of sprinting at the start (booking all the big vendors) and the end (tying everything together in the lead-up to the big day). The length of our engagement allowed us to save and pay things off as we went, which was incredibly helpful from a financial perspective, as well as to take time to sit with decisions around styling or additional vendors that we were still um-ing and ah-ing about.
Style inspiration.
We had two main guiding ideas when we first started looking at wedding venues: Yas wanted our ceremony to be held against a nature-filled background, and Julia wanted to tie in some old-world, vintage vibes. This helped to limit our venue options, and when we landed on Rippon Lea Estate, we could bring our vision for an old-world inspired elegant and whimsical garden wedding to life.
Seeing images of real weddings through blog posts and social media was a helpful way to visualise options for styling choices, such as colour schemes, ceremony and reception set-ups, and floral arrangements. It was also a useful way to research specific vendors – looking at a vendor’s profile generally gave us a good sense of their style and whether they would suit some of the ideas we already had in our heads.
The ceremony.
We got married on the eve of our ten-year anniversary – a sentimental choice of date but one that meant that we also maximised the odds of having good weather (with February typically being the driest month of the year in Melbourne). Of course, you never really know what Melbourne will have in store for you, but we were in luck (at least from a rain perspective) – the day was a balmy 32 degrees.
We had a glorious garden ceremony in the historic grounds of Rippon Lea Estate, framed against a backdrop of their lush gardens. The ceremony was filled with bursting florals in beautiful sandstone urns, sun parasols and paper fans, dreamy string music from a string quartet, and refreshing icy poles to cool down before the evening kicked off.
The outfits.
Julia’s Mum is a dress maker by trade, so the fact that she would make Julia’s wedding dress was a bit of a no brainer. Julia scoured the internet for months and attended several bridal stores to try on gowns in person before she finally settled on a design she liked.
Julia couldn’t get past the material of one specific dress she had seen online; it met the brief of being visually interesting without the use of lace or beading. When sourcing a likeness of the material in Melbourne failed, we opted to source the material itself, which came from Ukraine. Julia’s Mum ended up making a few versions of the bodice of the dress before we finally landed on the perfect cut, and we played around with the body of the skirt until it was just the right fullness and length.
Julia’s Mum also ended up making her veil from an unused layer of tulle we had left over from the skirt, and to bring in a touch of vintage, old-world love into the picture, Julia had her Mum’s wedding hat restored and wore it for some photos.
Yas wanted a suit that held enough visual interest that made him stand out as the groom, but that he could still see himself wearing in the future. The idea for a three-piece came into play fairly early on, and we lucked out when we found a beautiful dark grey, checkered suit in the second store we tried. Accessories were easy to match because the pattern on the suit meant it was best to keep them simple.
Favourite moment.
Seeing everything we had been planning for months and months finally come to life. We wanted our wedding day to be a celebration of the love we have for our friends and family, just as much as we wanted it to be a celebration of our love for each other, and it was so lovely and satisfying seeing and hearing people’s reactions to all the little details that we included to celebrate them. For example, our place cards were individualised with a photo of us and each guest, we made a giant photo stand displaying images of us and our loved ones from the last 10 years, and we set up little a photo tribute to the marriages and relationships of our parents and grandparents.
Meaning of marriage.
Marriage is a partnership between two imperfect humans that requires compassion, open communication, and a healthy dose of fun and laughter.
Wedding soundtrack.
Aisle: River Flows In You by Yiruma (performed by string quartet)
Signing: Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush & Photograph by Ed Sheeran (performed by string quartet)
Recessional: Let It Go by James Bay (performed by string quartet)
Bride & groom reception entrance: You Make Me by Avicii
First dance: Still Into You (Paramore cover) by Isabella Kensington
Last song: From Now On by Hugh Jackman, Greatest Showman Soundtrack
Funny stories (or near disasters).
Does the mother of the bride cutting her fringe with kitchen scissors on the day of the wedding count as funny? Julia suspects that in the excitement of getting ready, her Mum forgot that we had a professional hairdresser on hand and simply defaulted to her standard routine of doing a quick no-nonsense trim herself. Both the hair and make-up stylists were horrified when she whipped out the scissors, but we managed to stop her before she got too far, and our hair stylist did a magnificent job at styling Mum’s fringe to her liking.
Planning surprises.
The main surprise seemed to be how much more high stakes things felt when we were planning our actual wedding versus when we were yet to be engaged and musing on our hypothetical wedding. It makes sense when you think about it – you’re putting a lot of effort, time, and money into an important day so you want it to be as perfect as it can be, but it was an interesting thing to live out in real time! Julia never expected to spend so many hours of her life thinking about whether we needed a cake or not, when in our hypothetical chats we had said that we probably wouldn’t have one.
Words of wisdom.
If DIY-ing any elements of your wedding, overestimate how long those things will take, and then add a week on top of that. It’s easy to put off completing tasks because you think you might change your mind about something or it feels like you have plenty of time to do it. Trust Julia when she says the chance of you changing your mind is slim, and your future self will 100% thank you for having ticked some things off your list with time to spare. Something else will always come up to take up the time you would have otherwise been spending doing that thing.
Also, if you have a certain idea about how something will go, don’t assume people will know what you’re wanting to happen. TELL THEM every little detail you envisage for the day, even if you think it’s silly. We had both imagined that we would finish our first dance with a fancy dip, and then kick off the dance floor from that position with an upbeat song. However, we didn’t think to let our DJ know that, which meant that we were left hanging (literally) for a beat too long because he was waiting for us to come out of our dip before he hit play on the next song. It was a tiny thing, and it amuses us now, but if little details like that irk you, communicate everything with your vendor/s. At least then you’ll know you tried, even if it doesn’t end up working out the way you planned.
For more dreamy romance with a fresh modern feel, enjoy Jade and George’s beautiful Mornington Peninsula celebration. A gorgeous gown, all the emotions, and stunning styling – this is one to provide endless inspiration.
JULIA & YAS’ VENDORS
Ceremony venue: Rippon Lea Estate, National Trust of Australia (Victoria)
Reception venue: Rippon Lea Estate, Showtime Event Group.
Celebrant/Officiant: Ardent Celebrations. JC was a calming, reliable and down-to-earth presence in the lead up to the big day as well as on the day itself. She did a wonderful job weaving together our story and personalities for the ceremony, and we were so happy with her.
Photography: Motta Weddings. Alex was the first supplier we booked after our venue. We knew we wanted our photos to be amazing and having followed Alex’s work for several years, Julia knew we couldn’t pass him up. We were so ecstatic with our sneak peak, received the morning after the wedding, and then again with our full album.
Videography: Momento Films. We weren’t sure how it would go having a video camera filming us so closely, but we felt so comfortable with Alessandro around. He brought a fun but calming energy to the day and we are thrilled with the wedding video and longer film he and his team have put together.
Florist: Fern and Fallow Events. Flowers are big for Julia and she was so thrilled with Kirsty’s work creating the stunning, whimsical floral arrangements and bouquets for the day.
Hair: Stephanie Kate via Tonic Agency. Julia doesn’t think Steph could have done a better job with her hair if she’d tried. She was so happy with the results and was so thankful to have done a couple of trials beforehand to land on the most perfect look.
Make-up: Madeleine Goldsmith. Madi created the most perfect looks for Julia, her Mum, and the bridesmaids. Each had a slightly different request, but Madi was able to make them all tie together seamlessly.
The dress: Sewn by the mother of the bride
Veil / headwear: Veil – sewn by the mother of the bride. Hair comb – Saint Valentine. Vintage hat – mother of the bride’s wedding hat, restored by milliner Kim Fletcher.
Shoes: Bride – Seychelles via Anthropologie; Groom – Aquila
Rings: Etrnl Rings
Bridesmaid’s dresses: ASOS
Suits: Groom – MJ Bale; Groomsmen – Dom Bagnato.
Ties: Groom – Van Heusen; Groomsmen – Calvin Klein; Pocket squares: sewn by the mother of the bride from off cuts from the bridesmaid/bride’s dresses.
Favours: DIY’d by the bride (tea from T2)
Cake / Cake topper: Cake – Soda Lane Smash Cakes; Cake topper – Ali Express.
Stationery / Signage: DIY’d by the bride (Canva + Vistaprint)
Entertainment: Ceremony string quartet – Adorn Strings; DJ for reception – DJ Tee Pee. The music on the day was something we really hoped to get right, so we were stoked with our music vendors on the day. Adorn Strings provided the perfect ambiance to our ceremony and Todd (DJ Tee Pee) did an amazing job keeping the dance floor full throughout the night. We especially wanted a DJ who knew how to mix and transition songs so that we didn’t have any awkward lulls between songs and Todd delivered without question.
Transport: Limomate by Southern Cross.
Décor: Giant photo stand DIY’d by the bride
Hire: Ceremony furniture – Weddings of Distinction.
Honeymoon: Mecure Maldives Kooddoo Resort.
Fashion illustrator: Eugenie Zhan. Eugenie was a veryyy last-minute addition to our supplier list, but we were so glad we booked her! Having a fashion illustrator was such a fun way to do something a little different for our guests and everyone loved the illustrations. Hot tip – book Eugenie for as long as you can – she will be busy!
First Dance: Alegria Dance Co.
