Real Wedding: Lauren & Sam

Beautiful reception in a family owned winery

Lauren is a fashion stylist and content creator, so she was particularly creative when organizing her wedding to her beloved Sam. Instead of a white wedding dress, she went with gold. Instead of a bouquet, she went with a single flower. Instead of a separate table for newlyweds, they elected for a long table filled with friends. We asked Lauren about the details of her wedding, as well as her love story with Sam.

How did you meet?

We met on a cold Friday night in July, I was out with some girlfriends at a bar and one of them decided to wolf whistle a group of guys over to our table to meet ‘single me’. So, it was an awkward introduction at first but as soon as Sam and I started chatting we realized we had a connection whilst sharing so many similarities. From the bar, we moved on and ended up busting some moves on the dance floor which led us to working up an appetite, so our third stop was a pizza joint at 2 AM. And as they say it, the rest was history!

What was the concept behind your wedding and how did you find your inspiration?

The concept and theme for our wedding was Old Hollywood Glamour meets La Dolce Vita. I wanted to bring together my love of fashion, Italian heritage, classic vintage finds, and 1960's Hollywood romantic movies. I found inspiration from Pinterest, Instagram, vintage bridal magazines, and traveling through Europe and stopping to capture all the beauty it has to offer. However, I couldn't do any of this without my fabulous and talented Wedding Stylist Emily Rende from Memory Lane, and Danielle Sapio who previously owned Le Numinous as my florist.

Both brought so many creative and innovative ideas to the table and put tireless hours into making my dream wedding become real life. The inspiration and mood boards were to emulate a European destination wedding, with long tables that encapsulated the dining of what the Europeans do best, and with the centerpieces, incorporating candles with gold vintage candle holders and food scattered elements to combine our love for good food, wine and family time dining with our nearest and dearest. The color theme was sharp neutrals, whites, and gold with lots of draping with simple detailing. My dream was to have our entire marquee covered in 1000x fairy lights and our background also had fairy lights dripping down from the ceiling. All our stationary, invitations, and signage were printed on classic textured paper that had deckled edges to highlight the vintage European essence with of course gold details on everything and anything we could.

Real Wedding in a Family Owned Winery

Where was your wedding?

It was at Golding Winery, Lobethal in the stunning Adelaide Hills.

Why did you choose this venue?

We fell in love with the lush green front garden and stunning views Golding had to offer. The food, staff, and overall ambiance were elegant and completely divine. The Golding staff were incredible to work with, Amy our wedding coordinator was excellent in articulating our tastes and needs with her 'nothing was too hard to achieve attitude', we loved working with her and her team.

How many guests did you have?

We had 150 guest

Tell us about your outfits.

My gown was designed and created by my darling mother and myself, this was truly such a special experience that I will cherish forever. The gown itself was created to be worn in three different ways, which is what I had in mind, so instead of creating an entirely new dress I wanted to look at de-constructing the dress to work in the three parts & stages of the wedding; the ceremony, reception and then the after party! We had the fabric manufactured by Studio Fabric in Sydney, the owner Linda was incredible to work with and really understood our vision thus bringing this to life.

For me, I wanted to opt for the none traditional white gown and to go with more of a champagne gold tone that would suit my complexion. The outfit was either going to be completely classic with an understated style or detailed with a 'more is more' couture vision - I obviously went with the louder choice. Everything down from the beading, applications, shiny silk metallic organdy fabric we had as the overlay feature, feathers, and tulle was so well thought of. The dress required a lot of bespoke testing and detailing to make it all work. We spent many nights planning and re-designing certain sections to make it work especially once we received the fabric. Every aspect of the dress from the bodice, sleeves, under construction, split and feather placement, and overlays required so much attention to detail whilst also maintaining a sheer silhouette. I wanted to make sure that the dress did not wear me, instead, I wore the dress. My mother spent 100+ hours to get the silhouette to perfection, not to mention the couture hand-work that was required for the final hand touches including the beaded application to my veil.

My morning robe was another bespoke piece my mother created for me, whilst still maintaining the theme of champagne gold and feathers. I even glued the leftover feathers to my slippers for the morning, so keeping in mind sustainability!

I found my exquisite wedding shoes on a trip to Sydney, they suited and matched the fabric perfectly. I’ve been a big fan of Rene Caovilla shoes for a while and I’m so glad I was able to find the perfect Cinderella pair with them, and then I changed into some gold Aquazzura heels for dancing the night away. The earrings were a gift from one of my beautiful Bridesmaids, they were Chanel and my clutch was from Cult Gaia. The fragrance I wore was my ultimate favorite scent that I’ve been wearing for years, Chance by Chanel.

What was your first dance song?

It was an acoustic cover by Stefan Mahendra – Adorn (the original is by Miguel, Adorn).

What flowers did you choose for the bride's bouquet?

Simplistic and romantic was the vision for my bouquet, as the dress and other elements were so detailed all I fancied was a simple long stem cream rose. Danielle my florist took it to a whole new level by spray painting each stem gold, which looks absolutely divine as gold was a big color theme of our wedding. My bridesmaids also carried only a single rose, and the groom, groomsmen, and other intimate family members wore little gold pin flowers on their lapels.

What was the floral design of the wedding?

The floral arrangements for the ceremony consisted of orchids as they are my absolute favorite flower, so we opted for dyed phalaenopsis orchids, roses, sprayed gold turtle leaves, preserved Amaranthus, preserved hydrangeas, preserved asparagus fern, and preserved honesty with color palettes including whites, creams, gold, and light mochas. As for the reception I wanted to emulate the European aspect with flowers, fruit, and nuts on the tables, bars, and antipasto grazing table. This consisted of roses, dark anthuriums, painted gold turtle leaves, red grapes, brown pears, green olives, and shelled walnuts. This was obviously for decoration, but I loved how my friends and family felt right at home picking at the centerpieces, this was something that I certainly envisioned especially as the champagne started flowing and the night went on.

What was your wedding cake like? And where did you order it?

We had two cakes – one for show which was from Lyons Den Cakes. The other was for eating, it was a delicious Italian custard sponge cake that my nonna used to make and it was from Mercato, they absolutely nailed it!