STEPH X JAMES

yandina station modern country wedding images by a'daw photography

wedding date 30 september 2022

94 wedding guests

"We met both working at the same Coles Supermarket whilst at Uni... James worked in the deli and I worked in online shopping. The Coles we worked at had a very big group of friends around the same age that partied all the time. Most of them also attended our Wedding and we keep in regular contact. Over time our friendship eventually led to us dating and 9 years later, we got married.

steph + james | to the aisle sunshine coast

Did you know leading up to it that your partner was going to propose?

Haha, yes. We had been talking about it for years and I (Steph) had picked out the ring about 2 months prior. In saying that, I was surprised on the day/location. It was very much a spur of the moment.

The proposal...

We both spend the Christmas break at my (Steph's) parents in Noosa and love doing Noosa national park walks from Sunshine Beach. One day we happened to go off the trail and were on a secluded cliff overlooking the ocean. I turned around and James was down on one knee. It was very simple and spur of the moment. James later said he'd had the ring with him for a couple of weeks and was just waiting for what felt like the right moment.

Venue winning factor...

For anyone who has been to Yandina Station you would know. It’s so picturesque! The photos do not do it justice. We were in awe at the views through the valley when we first saw it in person. The owners Sally and Neil do such a lovely job at making it the perfect place. We also loved the 100 year old barn as we both love history and you don’t often come across such buildings still standing in Australia.

The most important thing you wanted wedding theme wise...

Simplicity. We are both very minimalist so didn’t want anything over the top. Our florist was very accommodating with this and knew exactly what we meant. She nailed what I had envisioned.

Most faaaaave moment...

On the dance floor right after the first dance when we were surrounded by our friends and family. This just made us so happy to be surrounded by everyone we love!

Faaaave Wedding detail...

That we included our Cavoodle Gigi. She is like our first born and couldn’t have possibly had the biggest day of our lives without her.

How easy did you find your dress/suit shopping experience?

Buying the dress was very easy. I had been eyeing the Cara gown by Prea James for a long time as it is very ‘me’. My dress was the first thing I did in terms of planning.

The suit was probably one of the last things we organised. We did this through Institchu and they were great at putting together all the suits at a great quality.

What does marriage mean to you?

Marriage is the commitment that you both choose each other to spend the rest of your lives together. You’re making a promise to have each others backs for life.

A piece of advice that helped you the most when planning...

I actually tried to zone out of advice after a while because if you listen to absolutely everyone it gets overwhelming. If I WAS to give advice, I would say enjoy being engaged for a year or two. Book your date with your venue far in advance. We booked ours about a year and a half earlier. As we didn’t have a wedding planner, it just made it so easy to slowly organise everything bit by bit. I couldn’t imagine having to organise a wedding within a short time frame. Also find a star of a wedding venue. Sally from Yandina Station was great if I had any questions or concerns, highly recommend!

Wedding songs...

I walked down the aisle to an instrumental version of 'Runaway' by Kanye which James chose only a few days before the wedding. We then played 'I can tell that we are going to be friends' by the White Stripes whilst we were signing the certificate.

Otherwise, there was nothing specific. We both love music so I just made 2 playlists (chill vibe and party vibe) of all the songs we love and put them on shuffle throughout the day and night. We had a friend who switched the playlist from chill to party after first dances. I was a bit concerned whether this would work on the day, but it was seamless. We also had to finish with Horses, though I think it was played a number of times during the night.

Stand out vendor/s for the day...

Elise from A’Daw Photography. Honestly, for both us having our picture taken all day was something we were very apprehensive about. Elise was just perfect! She made us both feel so at ease. It felt like we were just hanging out with one of our friends. She also had never been to Yandina Station before, but was so organised and had scoped out all the spots so was able to direct us to where we needed to go. I found Elise on instagram and loved the vibe of her page. She was by far my favourite photographer that I came across and was just so lucky she was available for our date. The pictures also came out amazing!

Also shout out to my friend Ellie from Ellie Ross Makeup who did a wonderful job on my makeup.