Sian + Alec · Yering Gorge Wedding

Favourites

10 Feb

YERING GORGE COTTAGES [YARRA VALLEY] WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

Last week I shared some of my favourite photos from this couples beautiful elopement on the blog, and today I’m excited to be sharing more of my favourites from their epic wedding day at the Yering Gorge Cottages, located in the Yarra Valley.

HOW THEY MET + THE most adventurous and romantic PROPOSAL ever

They might not have met in the most exciting way (at work) - but their proposal story is epic. Alec and Sian became engaged in 2016, after an epic treasure hunt across Switzerland. Okay, I keep using the word epic a lot, but you’ll see why!

It started after Sian flew to meet Alec in Switzerland, after he had finised a 3 week hike (the cross Switzerland walk) with some friends. But instead of meeting Alec int he airport, she was greeted by two teenage girls who smiled, and handed her a green envelope before walking off. The envelope contained a letter, a photo of Alec and Sian, a key, and a train ticket from the airport to Basel. The letter instructed her to head to the lockers at the Basel train station, and when she arrived there she opened the locker to find a long stemmed rose, more money, a snack, some sunscreen and another green envelope with some instructions.

The letter told her to leave her luggage in the locker, head to a specific cafe and soak in the sights while she enjoyed a coffee (and it was at this point that Sian started to think he had organised something more than a fancy hotel room). When she reached the cafe, her coffee order came out with another green envelope which contained another photo, a tram ticket, more instructions and a blank piece of paper with little random squares cut out of it. These instructions told her to catch a particular tram, and to use the blank cut out piece of paper over the letter from the very first envelope to reveal her destination - Dornach (Alec’s mums hometown).

When she arrived in Dornach, there was another green envelope stuck onto the tram stop totem pole, which contained another photo, instructions, and a map with two highlighted routes, a pink route and an orange route. The instructions told her to follow the pink route first, which was terrifying as she had no data and couldn’t use Google Maps to help her, and locate the next envelope at her destination (which was Alec’s mums childhood home). The next envelope had another photo and more instructions telling her to follow the orange route on the map, to pick up any paper arrows she might find, and to go into the first large cave she saw (at this point she was like whhhhhhattttt?!).

The orange route took her through the woods/forest called Hermitage, Sian cursing Alec the whole way at making her look into caves on her own as she went. But eventually she found the right cave, and saw another green envelope sitting up on a ledge. When she opened this envelope, there was another photo of them and some instructions that simply said “Turn Around”.

And when she turned around, Alec was there on bended knee with a 4 franc op-shop ring that was way too big (even for her thumb)!

Of course, she said yes and cried a heap too!

Maybe you’re wondering at this point how those random teenage girls and the waitress were getting the envelopes to Sian? Well Alec had been following her, dressed incognito the whole time, and heading to her next destinations slightly before her to help set things up.

How epic and romantic is that?!? ♥♥♥

The wedding DAY

The things I’ll never forget from this wedding:

These two opted for a First Look so they could spend time with their loved ones after the ceremony instead, and it was so sweet and the smoke bomb + veil photos might be some of my favourite from last wedding season.
MY BRIDE WORE SHOULDER CAPES! Doesn’t she look like a total QUEEN?!
The dance floor. The dance floor!!! The most epic dance floor ever, these two lovers got a little wild on the dancefloor and I loved every single second of it. I couldn’t stop myself from ditching my cameras and having a bit of a dance with everyone towards the end of the night, it was too much fun!
The incredible effort that Alec and Sian + their friends and family went to in styling the venue with all the flowers and the little heartfelt touches (I absolutely adored how they printed out selfies of them with every guest and popped them at everyone’s seat). The whole venue looked incredible.
The beautiful ceremony which was 100% officiated by their best friend, it was so meaningful and full of so much love and happiness.
And how could I ever forget the hilarity that happened in the photo booth?! Alec got totally down to his knickers in the name of photo glory and it was awesome.

The whole day was pretty magical from start to finish and I’m so honoured to have been part of it all ♥.

THOUGHTS FROM ALEC + SIAN

I can honestly say that all of our vendors were a bliss to work with, yourself included Lecinda - so many people commented to me about how great you were (/are!). I really appreciated your help on the day with bits and pieces I wouldn't have thought of - you really were more than our photographer observing the day. I'm so happy things worked out the way they did with having you as our photographer! Sometimes things that happen to you that you think are crappy, like our original photographer cancelling, but in our case, it ended up turning out so wonderful and better than you ever had hoped for! We looked at the Numero Uno wedding photos yesterday together. They're so beautiful. You did a beyond amazing job! It was so lovely to be able to relive the moment together - got the both of us emotional.

Our DJ was Strafford Floate, who works as a music and AV technician across theatres and recital halls around Melbourne. He too had done weddings of friends of friends. He was great - relaxed, calm, confident - nothing was ever an issue! My uncle who is a welder, made us the white mesh backdrop and the copper welcome/seating chart stands for a fraction of the price it would've cost us to hire.