Megan & Clive

26 August 2016
Mercure Gerringong Resort, Gerringong, New South Wales
Photography by Benjamin Sowry

"Clive surprised me with a romantic week away in the Blue Mountains. Knowing I have a love for all things vintage and historical we stayed at the Carrington Hotel. We are very ‘outdoorsy’ people and love to hike and explore. During our stay we visited Jenolan Caves, Hydro Majestic Hotel and Wentworth Falls. It was there that Clive proposed. He distracted me by pointing something out in the distance and when I turned around he was on one knee with the ring in hand. We had a lengthy hike out until we could break the news to our relatives!"

The plans

"We had 11 months to plan our wedding. Clive and I are very laidback and our planning reflected that. Having a clear vision of what we wanted the wedding to look like helped make the planning a smooth process. We set a budget and for the most part stuck to it. We knew from the beginning what we wanted to tackle ourselves and what we wanted to outsource. The team at Decorations By Jelena were amazing in helping bring our vision together and solving any dilemmas along the way."

Megan and Clive's wedding had a colour theme of black, burgundy, plum, purple and lavender. "The inspiration for the styling came from our collective tastes. We both like dark colours, nature and forests and we wanted a style that was a little bit different to traditional wedding designs. My favourite animal is a deer. I saw an image on Pinterest of naturally shed antlers as part of a wedding bouquet and knew I had to have a version of it for our wedding!"

The gown, the suit

"Purchasing my wedding dress was something I wasn't looking forward to. The pressure of finding this one dress made me want to take a long nap!" Megan finally found a Jasmine gown. "When I put it on I fell in love. The intricate beading was tasteful and flattering. Surprisingly something I had been dreading turned into a lot of fun."

Clive wore a black suit with a black shirt and tie. "We had a unified look for both our groom, his best man and my maid of honour."

The ceremony

"Our ceremony was perfect and surreal, like a dream. It flew by but couldn’t have gone smoother. The ceremony was incredibly meaningful. We chose traditional vows because there was something about those words being used by couples over and over again to make sincere and long-lasting promises to each other which really resonated with us. Our readings were how we made our ceremony more personal. One was an Irish blessing in honour of my late mother's heritage. We also had live music with a violinist and a guitarist at our ceremony."

The venue

"As we had a lot of family and friends coming from out of town, we wanted a venue that had accommodation onsite as well as separate spaces for our ceremony and reception. A hotel was a natural choice. Our guests would have somewhere to stay and a place to go between the ceremony and reception that was warm! With that in mind the research began. We'd driven past the Mercure Gerringong many times on our way south and loved the look of the courtyard and reception room. It was a blank canvas that we could transform to reflect us as a couple. After meeting with the event team we were sold! They were incredibly friendly and allowed us to visit during a wedding set up so we could see what was possible. Tasting the menu sealed the deal!"

Sweet delight

Megan and Clive's wedding cake was a rustic, 3-tier buttercream icing cake. "It was decorated with fresh flowers, mainly roses, vines and berries. The flavours were lime and coconut, strawberry and white chocolate and dark chocolate mudcake. We had a wooden cake topper of our names surrounded by antlers."

It's the fun times that matter

"Our advice to couples planning a wedding is to have as much fun as possible. That's also our mantra for our lives. There may be times when it all seems too hard but if you can laugh about the situation it will alleviate any stress. I remember when we were doing the invitations we were trying to figure out what the envelope colour should be. After days of deliberating I turned to Clive and we both burst out laughing because we realised it really didn't matter. Yes details are important but keep it all in perspective."