Samantha loves Robert | Classic Flaxton Wedding

August 23, 2017

Bride Samantha says the only thing that went wrong on her Flaxton wedding day is that it went by way too fast! Although not before she, her brand spanking new husby, Robert, and their 120 guests smashed out a good three hours on the dancefloor.

The couple decided it was super important they were able to spend the maximum amount of time as possible with their guests, many who had travelled interstate to be with them on their big day. To achieve this, they made what they say was their best wedding planning decision: they had a “first look” prior to the wedding ceremony.

Then they proceeded to get their bridal party photo shoot out of the way, so that after the ceremony they could relax and interact with their family and friends. Kristy from Wildflower Weddings was the first supplier Samantha booked once they locked in the Flaxton wedding date.

Although the whole Sunshine Coast hinterland town of Flaxton lost power following Cyclone Debbie, Flaxton Gardens was able to run the entire wedding using generators. If Flaxton Gardens venue owner, Alan Thompson, was stressed about the lack of power, Sam and Rob say you would never have known. Sam and Rob say Alan was cool as a cucumber and everything ran smoothly from start to finish.

“I had a lot of help with my DIY projects – everything from wrapping bottles in twine, to stuffing invitations and making our guests bags for the bus trip up.” “Rob and I wanted to spend as much time with our guests, so we minimised the time spent on photos by having a “first look” and doing bridal party photos before the ceremony. It was the best decision we made.” “Our wedding theme is something that I really struggled with until I met with the florist, Julia from Ginger Lily & Rose, and we fleshed out the vision together!” “I followed a lot of people on Instagram – The Bride’s Tree, Lovebird Weddings and White Magazine – for inspiration.”“We wanted our wedding to be fun, relaxed and interactive. We had a lot of guests coming from out of town, and wanted to maximise the time that we could spend with them.” “Rob was really sweet and put together canvases that told our story and placed those around the room, so that guests who weren’t familiar with our whole story could walk around and read them.” “Our guest books doubled as table numbers, and will act as a little time capsule from the day. Every anniversary we open a guestbook from the corresponding table number – so in 13 years time we will read our notes from Table 13!” “Our biggest strength is that we let each other go in our early 20’s so that we could travel. It was a hard decision but ultimately we were lucky enough to choose each other again at the end of it!” “I went to university with Rob’s flatmate. Rob invited me to go jetskiing one day, and after a couple of summers of that we decided that we liked each other enough to start dating!”

Wedding Secrets

Best money-saver: I saved a lot by putting the invitations together myself rather than outsourcing it.

Bridal gown: June by Pronovias, $2400 – Brides of Brisbane

Accessories: Samantha Wills at David Jones

Shoes: Tony Bianco

Bridesmaid dresses: The Bridal Company, $385

Bridesmaids’ accessories: Their own

Groom’s suit and shoes: Indochino

Groomsmens’ suits and shoes: Indochino

DIY: I collected and wrapped the jars and bottles for the centrepieces, and put the invitations together, but honestly the venue was so great and had a lot of stuff that we could use!

Honeymoon: The Philippines

Number of guests: 120

Wedding budget: $35, 000

Who paid: My family were so generous and covered a lot of it.

“The dancefloor was a big part that I wanted to get right. Our whole day was planned around dedicating at least 3 hours to dancing!”