Real Wedding at Eat Street Markets......

Thank you Brisbane City Celebrants for sharing this Real Life Wedding with us……

Lauren and Andy share their fun filled day starting with their ceremony at Brisbane’s Newstead Rotunda with Celebrant Cara Hodge of Brisbane City Celebrants,

through to their vibrant relaxed reception at Brisbane’s Eat Street Markets.

Neither of us likes being the centre of attention, public speaking and corny traditions so the first plan for our wedding was to elope and have a destination wedding that anyone who wanted to join could.

We quickly realised our families and grandparents in particular probably couldn’t join us and would be disappointed to miss out, so we made each other a promise:

“To have the most informal, simple, fun, ‘non-wedding’ we could pull off and to do it as soon as we could rather than have a big build up happen over time.”

We found a Saturday in May that suited all locations,

May 19th – we picked it first before the royal couple!

One of the few traditional elements of the day was my dress, every little girl dreams of wearing that beautiful white wedding dress.

I started looking at a few shops not long after saying ‘yes’ and with only three months to the wedding I was left panicking at the end of the day with every shop telling me they couldn’t get me one in time and I’d have to buy off the rack as is, alterations were out of the question in my time frame.

So a call to Mum and a ‘sicky’ at work, she flew up from Sydney the following week and we set out on a mission to end the day with a dress, and with the help of Angelic Bridal we did!

I found an elegant ivory lace fit and flare dress with a gorgeous train I just fell in love with, altered slightly by Kaylique Designs this was perfect for the day.

The groom wore a navy suit, which we hired from Tony Barlow to keep costs down, and his groomsmen wore mismatched suits in the same navy to coordinate with his.

Our ceremony took place at Newstead Rotunda in Newstead Park, I walked down the aisle to an acoustic version of “Feel the Love” by Rudimental, one of my favourite music groups.

Our vision for our ceremony was short, sweet, quick & simple.

Not wanting to profess our love in front of 90 people when neither of us like speaking to any size audience was very important and with the help of our Celebrant we achieved this perfectly.

Bella spotted her Daddy whilst walking down the aisle and just ran to him so happy and lovingly, which was so special.

Knowing I have made the best choice for the two of us to spend our life with Andy in the most perfect world – nothing beats that.

We choose simple non-traditional weddings vows – to help each other grow and love each other more each day – real world promises.

Our Celebrant Cara Hodge from Brisbane City Celebrants was amazing!

She made the process so easy for the day.

Answered any questions, big or small for us, had advice for the little things and even gave us honeymoon travel tips!

We couldn’t have chosen a better celebrant for our day!

We made sure the ceremony included our daughter, in addition to being our ring bearer, the ceremony wording focused on the making of a family, not just a couple.

All our vendors were great, I think they actually appreciated the ease of the planning I provided, the relaxed approach I had to every element.

As a surprise to many, our reception took place at Eat Street Markets Northshore.

Eat Street Northshore is Brisbane’s iconic riverfront shipping container food and market precinct, with new unique container style function spaces.

We chose the River deck overlooking the Brisbane river.

Eat Street is nothing like what you ever imagine your wedding venue to be.

On a mission to have no traditional elements, this place covered everything we wanted.

A ridiculously huge selection of food styles to choose platters from, the venue comes fully themed and furnished.

They had a bar set up and butler to attend to our guests.

Nearly every guest has taken a moment to tell us how much fun and easy going it was.

How great it was to not have to sit through endless speeches or be stuck talking to the same people at a banquet table all night.

Our wedding hashtag #laurenandandy2018 was actually followed by #bestweddingever by many people.

We loved seeing the absolutely endless enjoyment everyone was having which was such a highlight of our day, in particular, our daughter who was in her element and without a doubt stole the show all day long.

My advice to future couples? It’s supposed to be a fun experience.

Focus on the goal, getting married rather than impressing your old school mates you never talk to and your mum’s gossiping gal pals.

It’s YOUR day – no one else, who cares what anyone thinks!