Real Wedding – Sarah & Kuming, Red Hill VIC

Celebrating a couple with stunning style and the desire to remain true to their creativity while encapsulating timeless sophistication, Sarah and Kuming’s wedding day is exquisite in every element. From the epic feels to the perfectly on-point aesthetics, this darling day is a vibe.

Leaning into real wedding inspiration, Sarah and Kuming chose to prioritise certain aspects of their wedding, like florals and stationary, creating a vision of beautiful blooms by Flowers Vasette to enhance the sleek contemporary architecture of Port Phillip Estate. They let go of any traditions that didn’t feel true to them, focusing on making the entire experience a reflection of them and treat for their guests.

To suit the vibe, Kuming wore an ivory, gorgeously tailored suit by Calibre, with carefully curated cufflinks and cummerbund, creating his own ultra-chic moment. Sarah is breathtaking in her dream gown by Kyha, a vision of modern glamour in a sleek, fresh cut. Ensuring she was party ready, Sarah changed into a mini dress that is dance floor perfection – complete with fringing, cutaways and luminescent bodice detailing.

This is the ultimate harmony of effervescent excitement and modern style, captured in visual poetry by photographer Tess Follett.

The meeting.

We met at work! We also coincidentally lived on the same street, so we started to car-pool to work and go for walks and get coffees on the weekend. The rest as they say, is history.

The ‘one’.

Sarah: I think I knew pretty quickly, he is my best friend, and I can’t imagine doing life with anyone else.

Kuming: Pretty early on we worked out our niche music tastes aligned perfectly – so I knew then.

The proposal.

It was during one of Melbourne’s many COVID lockdowns. Somehow, Kuming managed to organise a surprise without me knowing (a feat in itself!), but especially during lockdowns when we were both home all the time. He set up flowers in our kitchen, popped the question and then we prepared a Providoor meal together listening to our favourite music and sipping on wine. I can’t imagine anything more perfect.

Style inspiration.

We wanted something classy and timeless while still expressing our creative sides! We lent into this both with the stylistic choices we made such as flower selections and stationery, as well as including or omitting traditional wedding elements so as to better suit our tastes. Our focus was making this a day for us, reflecting “us” as much as we could.

For inspiration, real weddings were my favourite to look at! People are so creative and do the most amazing things, so it was really inspiring to see what couples had come up with!

The ceremony.

The most special part was having all our closest friends and family with us. Our loved ones are spread all over the world, so it meant a lot that so many of our nearest and dearest travelled such long distances to share in our intimate and special day.

The outfits.

Sarah: my first dress was a customised Kyha number and it was just a dream! It fit me perfectly and although I had no idea what I wanted for a wedding dress, it was definitely one of those “when you know, you know” moments trying it on.

I’m super lucky to have an insanely talented Aunt who is a designer with her own atelier. My second dress was custom-made by her, and it was quite the showstopper! It was a halter mini dress covered in sequins, jewels, and feathers—all the good stuff! It was so special to wear a completely unique piece, and even more meaningful because it was made by my aunt.

Kuming’s suit was an easy choice. He always knew he wanted something a little different, so opting for an ivory tux was a natural decision. We spent time curating the finer details of the cut and fit, as well as selecting accessories like his cummerbund and cufflinks. If there’s one area I would never skimp on, it’s getting your suit tailored to fit perfectly—it makes a world of difference!

Favourite moment.

It’s honestly hard to choose one moment, but our vows were pretty special. We didn’t share them beforehand, so they were a complete surprise, but overlapped quite a bit, which is pretty funny but also lovely. Don’t tell him I said this, but Kuming’s vows were better than mine!

Meaning of marriage.

For us, we are one team. It’s about a commitment to each other and celebration of our love.

Wedding soundtrack.

This was one of our favourite parts, as music is so important to us! We had a string quartet for the ceremony and one of the best DJs in Melbourne, our friend Rodney, for the reception.

Aisle: Pachelbel Canon in D

Reception entry: Lady by D’Angelo

First dance: Your Love Is King by Sade

Funny stories (or near disasters).

Thankfully, the lead-up and the day of went smoothly without any hiccups, but – Kuming got locked out of the venue at the end of the night and was stuck outside for about 20 minutes! The wedding party had all gone down to our rooms to start the after party, and we didn’t realise the groom had been left behind!

Planning suprises.

Many of our friends had already gotten married so we had heard a lot about weddings and the planning process and not too much surprised us. I’m sure most couples would agree everything ends up being more expensive than you anticipated!

Words of wisdom.

Stay true to who you are as a couple, and as much as possible, try to do things for yourselves (we know this can be hard!), but it’s your day to celebrate YOU so let your personalities shine through!

Love the chic elegance of a short gown? Whether it be as a party change up or your dream gown choice, including a short gown in your wedding day brings a special sense of style and personality – here are some of our all time faves.

SARAH & KUMING’S VENDORS

Wedding websites like Ivory tribe are your best friend when looking for vendors, and we were also super lucky to have many of our incredible vendors recommended to us by our amazing friends.

We just want to thank everyone who helped make our day so unforgettable –  we don’t have a single regret and without sounding corny, had the best day of our lives! We are forever grateful to all our friends and family for joining us to celebrate. Everyone involved was unbelievable and we truly had an unmatched team of vendors and suppliers.

The people you spend the most time with on your wedding day are actually your photographer and videographer! So, it’s pretty important you choose people that make you feel comfortable and you enjoy spending time with. We lucked out with our photographer Tess and videographer Andrew, the vibe was chill and fun, we couldn’t stop laughing and it felt like we were hanging out with old friends.

The team at Port Phillip Estate; Rachel, Alaeddine, Elliot and the rest of the team made us feel like family!

Ceremony & reception venue: Port Philip Estate. This one was easy, we loved the architecture and vibe at PPE, so we didn’t really consider any other locations!

Celebrant: Greg Evans. Our dear friends recommended Greg and we are so grateful! He was an amazing support to us in the lead up to the big day, and the perfect balance of funny and serious for the ceremony.

Photography: Tess Follett. She is simply unmatched! We had seen a lot of her work featured on the likes of Ivory Tribe and had been following her for some time. We adore her photography style, she has a way of capturing intimate and candid moments that is just magical.

Videography: Andrew from Bliss and Boho. Andrew was recommended to us by my best friend, he is the best in the biz, but has sadly decided to stop doing videography.

Florist: Flowers Vasettte. We have always loved the amazing work the team at Vasette do and they did not disappoint! We worked with Nicholas and he was exceptional. They nailed the brief and then some, creating the most amazing display of flowers, I can’t describe the feeling of walking towards your future husband with a dream of flowers lining the aisle.

Hair: Rhys Mitchell Harrison & Co studios.Rhys is my hairdresser and the team at &Co studios are gurus when it comes to hair!

Make-up: Emma Rumian. Emma was also a recommendation from one of my best friends, not only is she an insanely talented makeup artist, but she also has the most chill and fun vibe, perfect for the morning of!

The dresses: First dress & veil – Kyha, second dress – custom from my aunt’s atelier.

Shoes: Wittner

Rings: Bride’s wedding band was my grandmothers which I resized and the groom’s is Sarah and Sebastian.

Bridesmaid’s dresses: they wore their own, which we loved!

Suits: Kuming’s suit was Calibre

Bow ties / ties: Tom Ford, Calibre

Cake / Cake topper: slightly controversial but we didn’t have a cake! Instead, we put that money towards an oyster bar with a chef shucking oysters in real time for our guests during the canapes. It was such a good choice, all our guests loved it!

Stationery / Signage: We’re lucky that Kuming is an exceptional designer, so he did all of our stationary and signage and absolutely killed it!

Entertainment: Ceremony – Adorn Strings. Reception – DJ Rodney

Dog sitter: The Wedding Sitter. Having our dog Maja at our ceremony was so special for us, and our guests also loved seeing her there! We knew we wanted her involved in our wedding day and having the wonderful Hannah from The Wedding Sitter look after her just took all the stress out for us. Hannah took the most amazing care of our Maja, kept her calm the whole time (not a peep during the ceremony!) and she was amazing at helping Tess get the shot when doing our photos.

Honeymoon: we just got back from Japan and it was the best trip ever! It’s the perfect honeymoon destination; you’ve got all sides covered, amazing food, beautiful scenery, rich culture but it can also be super relaxing and indulging. We highly recommend booking a private Onsen!

Other: Having a background in design and love of art, it was important to us to have really beautiful stationary and invitations, so that was something we really invested in. We also invested in a wedding website with Wedsites and can highly recommend! Its super customisable which we loved as we were able to get everything to match across our invitations, day-of stationary and the website. The best feature of the website was definitely that is collects your RSVPs and dietary requirements for you and you can extract this into an excel when you’re ready. Anything that reduces admin is a win!