Real Wedding – Claire and Thomas, Richmond VIC
Shimmering fun, elevated monochromatic tones, and uplifting emotion combine in blissed-out revelry for Claire and Tom’s wedding. It’s hard not to be swept up in the infectious excitement and connection between these two gorgeous souls, captured with dynamic artistry by photographer Tess Follett.
Every element of this stunning day speaks to effortless elegance and captivating curations. Touches of powder blue and accents of cobalt gently elevate the transcendent arrangements by Blonde Florals, while the bridesmaid’s gown in chic black and groomsmen in classic black tuxes give style personified. Butler Lane provides the perfect urban-chic backdrop for the celebration to unfold with a combination of the lush green outdoor space and sweeping expansive interior.
But a wedding day is a unique blend of unmatched emotion and dreamy aesthetics, and Claire and Tom’s was bound to be effervescent in the hands of celebrant extraordinaire Marry Me Tee. Logan Entertainment flawlessly accompanied the transition from ceremony hype to champagne toasts, keeping the emotions elevated to perfection.
Read on to see this mesmerising coalescence of emotion and style.
The meeting.
In 2014, we matched on an app, and we had our first date at a rooftop bar in the city. We ended up chatting late into the night, and a second date quickly followed.
The ‘one’.
Rather than any one moment, it was really an accumulation over time, as our relationship evolved and strengthened and we have both grown and shared our lives together. After emerging out of Melbourne’s long lockdowns, we both felt excited to officially make the commitment to our shared future together.
The proposal.
On a sunny winter day, we went out for dinner together then visited the Lightscape installation at the Royal Botanic Gardens. We wandered around the beautiful light displays, sipping mulled wine, then walked down to a quiet spot near the lake where Claire turned around to show Tom a photo she’d taken. To her surprise, Tom was down on one knee, a ring from her favourite jeweller in hand. After saying, “Are you serious?” about five times (despite eight years together, it was still a surprise moment!), Claire, of course, said yes. We spent the rest of our time exploring the gardens on an absolute high, then returned to the rooftop bar where we had had our first date, looking out over the city with champagne to celebrate.
Planning process.
We talked about what was important to each of us for our wedding day, then spent some time visiting different venues. We determined that an inner-city location suited our style and our preference for our wedding to be all in the one place, to be as easy as possible for our guests to simply turn up and have a great time. We loved that Butler Lane offered beautiful greenery in its outdoor courtyard for our ceremony, complemented by the light-filled, high-ceiling industrial space for the reception, as well as amazing food and drinks. We also decided that a first look in Treasury Gardens suited us so that, after the ceremony, we could get straight into celebrating and spending as much of the day as possible with our guests.
After choosing our venue and locking in a date, we got to work booking all our key suppliers, as we understood they could book out quite early in advance. It was great to have this all confirmed fairly early on, as this then gave us time over the following months to think about the details of the day.
Style inspiration.
We wanted our wedding to be timeless and elegant, but also a fun and joyful celebration rather than overly formal. It was also important to us to have amazing food, drinks and dancing. Classic black and white was the obvious choice for our styling, and we were drawn to different shades of blue florals for a touch of colour.
We drew inspiration from looking at real weddings, particularly on the Instagram pages of suppliers and sites like Ivory Tribe and Hello May. This helped us to get a sense of how the different elements of the day could all come together and to find suppliers who really resonated with us.
The ceremony.
We wanted our ceremony to strike a balance between feeling warm and relaxed but also to maintain a sense of occasion to reflect the significance of the commitment we were making. It was important to us to write personal vows to each other, which was one of the most special parts of the day.
The outfits.
I went into wedding dress shopping with an open mind and didn’t have a particular style I was looking for. This led to me doing a bit of a tour of Melbourne’s bridal stores (we are very lucky to have so many beautiful stores and designers!) and I think I tried on way too many dresses – it became hard to choose a dress that felt like the perfect “one”! I finally chose my dress because it felt the most right for me when I first tried it on. It was beautiful, light and comfortable to wear with an elegant cut and a touch of sparkle!
I didn’t plan to wear a second dress, but given there were a few lifts and dips in our first dance, I thought it would be great to wear something that I could easily dance the night away in! The Misha dress was perfect for this.
Tom knew that he wanted to wear black tie and already owned a made-to-measure classic tuxedo that was ready to go.
Favourite moments.
It is hard to go past how special the ceremony was and the joy of walking back down the aisle just married! We also both loved celebrating with our guests straight after the ceremony during our cocktail hour and the fun of our first dance.
Meaning of marriage.
Marriage symbolises a shared future, growing together, prioritising each other, and a commitment to supporting each other and strengthening our relationship daily. It is a step that elevates the everyday ways that we love each other to a lifelong commitment.
Wedding soundtrack.
Aisle: The Theory of Everything by Jóhann Jóhannsson
Recessional: Everlasting Love by Love Affair
Reception entry: Bridal party – September by Earth, Wind & Fire. Bride and Groom: (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher by Jackie Wilson
First dance: Can’t Take My Eyes Off You by Frankie Valli
Funny stories and near disasters.
Despite having had the same spray tan at the same place for years, my wedding spray tan unfortunately immediately turned green! Thanks to a lot of scrubbing, a crisis was averted, but it was quite an undesirable last-minute beauty mishap!
We also had the usual Melbourne concern of what the weather might be like. The week-out forecast combined the two extremes of 34-degree heat and thunderstorms, so we quickly bought some clear umbrellas and fans. Thankfully, neither were needed as, despite very warm days and the odd thunderstorm throughout the week, we ended up with a perfect, blue-sky spring day.
Planning stories.
Although everyone says planning a wedding takes a lot of work, it was a bit surprising just how much planning is involved! We had a spreadsheet of everything we needed to do (from major things like booking suppliers, to smaller details like planning the design and printing of our stationery, buying candles and menu holders, etc). We found it useful to use our spreadsheet as a task list and then to set aside time to talk about what needed to be done next and by when to avoid spending too much time on any one decision.
Words of wisdom.
We are glad we took the time early on in planning to think about what was important to us, and in particular deciding which suppliers we hoped to be part of our wedding and then booking them in early, as we then knew our day was in excellent hands as we went through all the steps of planning.
Enjoy the process! We enjoyed the creative aspects like planning the table styling for the reception and designing our stationery, choosing music that we loved, our first dance classes, and little things like choosing a special fragrance to wear on the day. Sometimes the planning can be a lot, but on the day, all the little details and decisions made in the planning process feel totally inconsequential compared to the happiness and excitement you feel.
Most importantly, be present on the day! It is truly the happiest and most special time, celebrating your love with all the people most important to you, so soak in all the joy.
Looking to embed a touch of blue in your wedding day style? We cannot get enough of this sweetly chic trend. Find some of our favourite looks here on the blog.
CLAIRE & TOM’S VENDORS
We used Instagram and Ivory Tribe as our main resources to find suppliers, as well as recommendations from the suppliers we booked. It was useful looking through real weddings and the past work of our suppliers to get inspiration.
Ceremony & reception venue: Butler Lane, Richmond
Celebrant: Tee Twiname from Marry Me Tee
Photography: Tess Follett. Tess was one of the first suppliers we booked in for our wedding and we felt so lucky to have her capture our day. Her photos are so beautiful and timeless. We are thrilled that all of her photos reflect the happiness of our day so much.
Videography: Rachael Mary Films. Rachael was a wonderful presence on our day, giving us just the right amount of direction and working seamlessly alongside Tess to document everything beautifully. We will treasure the films she captured forever.
Florist: Blonde Florals. Brontë took our inspiration and created the most stunning floral arrangements – when we first saw our reception set up and floral arbour we were blown away by how beautiful it all was! At the end of the night, she returned and wrapped up the flowers as bouquets for our guests to take home, which they loved.
Hair: Milli from Milco Hair and Makeup
Make-up: Andrea Takagi – Tonic Agency
The dresses: Aire Barcelona from Perfect Day Bridal, Misha (second dress)
Veil: Riva Bridal
Shoes: Bared Footwear
Rings: Claire – Catbird NYC and Hardy Brothers. Thomas – Diamond Exchange
Bridesmaid’s dresses: Bec + Bridge, Everlane and Billy J
Suits: Tom’s tuxedo – InStitchu. As a group of friends, the groomsmen each had matching tuxedos from having been grooms themselves and groomsmen for each other already.
Favours: Mini vermouth bottles. Tom loves to make cocktails and decided a few weeks out from the wedding that he would make vermouth as a gift to our guests. After ordering some 15 various botanicals online, concocting and bottling up the mini drinks days out from the wedding, he managed to pull it off and they were a hit.
Champagne tower: The Cocktail Queen
Cake / Cake topper: The Cheesecake Shop
Stationery / Signage: Designed by Tom and printed at Paper Point. Tom’s Dad kindly made our wooden welcome sign block.
Entertainment: Dani from Logan Ent.
First dance: Love in Motion Co.
On-the-day co-ordinator: Elizabeth from Weddings By E. Elizabeth was an amazing help on our wedding day. We could be totally present on our day, knowing she would handle anything that might pop up! She also helped with our run sheet and coordinating with our suppliers from eight weeks out from the wedding and was a wealth of knowledge throughout the planning process.
Honeymoon: We had a week-long mini-moon in the Grampians straight after the wedding, then we later went to Mexico and Guatemala for our honeymoon.
