Our Story
Casey the Bride: We got engaged back in October 2016 in Saint Emillion, Bordeaux. Luke proposed in a Vineyard at sunset with a hand carved wooden ring (which is what he always said he’d do!). Together, we then selected a
Heidi Gibson engagement ring. When Luke proposed, he had already organised a surprise engagement party for me back in Australia. It was amazing – we had all our family & friends (around 130 people). We had the best night! The very next morning though, we both woke up and said exactly the same thing to each other – when we have our wedding, it has to be tiny!
Our Wedding
Small & intimate – we wanted to be able to have long conversations & connect with everyone at the wedding, without having to run around like crazy all night trying to say hello to everyone! We have been living & working around Europe for a few years now, so we knew that we wanted to get married over here. We decided on
Finca Son Bosch in Andratx, Palma de Mallorca (Spain). We loved that there were so many different elements & rooms/locations to the venue – every stage of the wedding was a reveal!
The Planning
Our wedding planner (Lucie Forster from
Alago Events) was absolutely amazing – we hired her from the very beginning & she did an incredible job at bring our visions to life for the evening. We wanted the evening & the whole event (we spanned events out over 3 days – Prewedding Sunset cruise with Oasis Catamaran, Wedding Day & finally, Wedding Recovery session at Gran Follies Beach Club, Cala Llamp) to be a real experience for our guests.
They had all travelled from Australia – so we really wanted to treat them & make the whole thing super special! We tried to keep a rustic, earthy vibe present throughout the whole wedding – without taking too much away from the venue itself. We tried to keep flowers & colour theming very neutral – mostly greens, with lots of olive branches & a few pops of colour with some deep reds.
The Bride
I got ready at an apartment in Cala Llamp, Andratx. I wore a
Made With Love Bridal Gown – the ‘Frankie’. I had two veil-like attachments added to the shoulders, as I didn’t want to wear a veil in my hair – but wanted the same effect. I wore a
Viktoria Novak crown in my hair, the ‘Anastasia’. Luke & I are both Australian, so it was really special for me to wear Australian designed + made dress & crown. I picked my shoes up for 35 Euro from a boutique. I’ve never been a ‘shoe’ girl – so this was never a big deal for me, I think I picked them up 1 week before the wedding!
The Groom
Luke got ready at an apartment in Palma old town & wore a
Hugo Boss suit. He arrived at the wedding in a 1960’s Austin Healey.
The Photography & Film
Our Photographers were
Chris & Ruth – just amazing! Luke found them on Instagram one afternoon & we instantly fell in love with their style – we felt it really reflected the exact vibe that we wanted for the day. We were also really lucky to have our friend, Eddie, from
Ripple Weddings fly over from AUS to do the Videography for us. He’s incredibly talented – so we were thrilled when he said he would be able to come.
The Ceremony
We transported all of our guests to the wedding from town on a bus, Luke was there to greet them all when they arrived. After a welcome drink, they were all ushered into the courtyard of the Finca under a vine canopy to await the bride’s arrival. Casey arrived with her two sisters & father, though we didn’t have Bridesmaids or Groomsmen (keeping in theme with the small & intimate vibe of the wedding – we just wanted it to be us standing up the front). So it was just Casey & her Dad walking up the aisle. We walked in to ‘Something in the way she moves’ by James Taylor – which was actually the first song that came onto the radio after we were pulling out of the driveway after seeing the venue for the first time, so we took that as a sign! We wrote our own vows & played a big part in the wording of the ceremony. Alex, our celebrant, was amazing & really set the vibe for the casual, intimate ceremony that we wanted. Casey’s ring with a plain rose gold band from
Heidi Gibson, and Luke picked up his wedding band from a little market one Sunday morning in Italy. I think it was 15 Euro?!
We had two readings, both of which were very sentimental to us. We had a ‘Traditional First Nation/Native American Wedding Blessing’ which we first read when we were living in Canada. It speaks a lot about your connection to the land & working through any troubles in your relationship together. So we loved that! We also had ‘Just the way you are’ – Lyrics to the Billy Joel song. We saw Billy Joel at the Hollywood Bowl back in 2014 when we first left Australia to go travelling, so it sort of felt fitting that we had a reading of his lyrics at our wedding!
The Reception
After the ceremony, we moved out to the front of the Finca & had Cava, Beers & Sangria + some beautiful, big cheese platters. We also had a traditional Spanish Guitarist playing, a Polaroid guest book & marriage advice cards scattered around the garden – it was really fun to read through these the day after the wedding! Lucie sourced our caterers for us (Manchego) and they were just incredible! The food & drinks were delicious.
We then moved up to the terrace for dinner (we entered the banquet to ‘Sure Feels Good’ by Bryan Cadd). As we were only a group of 39 people, we decided on one long table with beautiful overhanging foliage & lights – the table was completely amazing, more than I could have ever wanted! We ate beautiful salads, flank steaks & BBQ’d prawns (Luke loves a BBQ – so display cooking was always going to be happening!!) whilst drinking beautiful wine as the sun set, listening to the speeches/toasts. It was just magical!
The Party
We then moved through to the old Olive Press room for dessert (Sticky Date cake + cupcakes by Bonito Cakes) & espresso martinis. One of our friends said that these almost served as rocket fuel straight onto the dance floor - I couldn’t agree more! I quickly changed into an
Alice Mcall playsuit &
Samantha Wills earrings (two more Australian designers) for the first dance + party. We had our first dance to ‘A Girl from the North Country’ (by Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash) underneath the canopy where we were married, with everyone waving sparklers. The tempo then picked up & we all moved into the old stables for the big dance party, with DJ Deep Delicious. We partied away until 2.00am, when the bus came to collect all the guests.
Special Details
We opted for a bottle of wine for each of our guests as our Thank You gift, though we gave it to them on the Catamaran – we wanted them to enjoy it in the lead up to the wedding! The wine was the wine that was served throughout the wedding, and the grapes are grown in the vineyards next door to the venue.
Advice
Luke & I said goodbye to everyone & then had one more drink sitting in the courtyard & reflecting on the whole evening – I cannot recommend this enough to anyone on their wedding night! Taking those 2 minutes in the venue at the end of it all, just the two of you – was incredibly special & the perfect way to wrap up the best day/night of our lives.