SAM X MARCUS

sunshine coast weddings to the aisle australia

Sunshine Coast Wedding / Images by Collective Photography

Sam & Marcus first met in June 2022 at a friend's birthday dinner. "The only conversation we had was around a potential job opportunity Marcus had at work. A few months later, I found myself packing up my life on the Sunshine Coast to move to Brisbane for a job I knew little about. A month or so later Marcus asked me out for dinner, which I thought was just something casual.

However, in Marcus’ mind, it was the perfect time to share his feelings for me, which came as a complete surprise." Sam shares.

Did you know leading up to it that Marcus was going to propose? It did cross my mind briefly that day as we were doing a lot of our favourite things together. But it was our anniversary weekend so it all made sense. We wanna hear all about the proposal… Marcus organised a day in the Gold Coast for us to celebrate our anniversary.

We had a yummy breakfast, got a couples massage and had a reservation at a surprise restaurant booked for that night. As I got ready for dinner the rain poured down outside, Marcus was getting a bit restless and frustrated with the weather which I thought was odd because a restaurant would have a wet weather option.

As we drove towards the restaurant it continued to rain heavily. We parked at the lighthouse where we had one of our first proper dates and first kiss. We walked over to a beautiful picnic laid out perfectly, but it was completely soaked. I tried to pack it up quickly so we could get out of the rain and back into the warmth of the car, Marcus stopped me, stood me up and started reading a letter he had written, then he dropped to one knee and asked me to marry him.

We were blessed by some wonderful friends to host our wedding in their home. They built a gorgeous barn in their backyard a few years ago for the purpose of holding weddings and celebrations for their close friends and family.

We were privileged enough to hold our wedding ceremony on their lawn under a big tree, our cocktail hour on their deck and the reception in their barn. Being able to celebrate such a significant moment in our lives in the home of our wonderful friends made the day so much more personal and special.

The most important thing to us was that our wedding would be a team effort. We have such talented people around us who have their own business and we wanted to make sure we included them in our day because of the significance they’ve played in our lives. My sister-in-law did all of the florals including the floral floor arch of my dreams!

Our families and friends helped set up the ceremony, cocktail hour and the reception the day before and morning of the wedding! Our good friend Matt of Collective Photography photographed the day, our close friends made cocktails, we had our dog Locky there too! It was the perfect day with our favourite people.

My most favourite and memorable moment would be standing at the top of the hill waiting to walk down the aisle with my Dad. Seeing Marcus standing at the end surrounded by all of our favourite people was so surreal. The flowers were so dreamy, the weather was ideal, everything in that moment was perfect.

My fave wedding detail apart from the gorgeous flowers would have to be my dress. I spent well over 300 hours designing, pattern drafting, and sewing my dress to be exactly what I had envisioned. It turned out better than I expected.

I almost gave up at one point, everything seemed so hard, but Marcus was so encouraging and helped me get my head back into it. He gave me a deadline of 30 June and said I’d have to buy if I didn’t make it by then. I completed my dress on 31 July which was 2 days before the wedding!

We made the decision to get married as it expresses how deeply we love each other. We made a promise in front of God and our family and friends to always choose each other no matter what comes our way. Marriage signifies two people becoming one and we are stronger now for it.

The Wedding dress shopping part for me was super fun, I knew from the beginning I would be making my own dress so I tried on all of the styles to see which parts I liked and could incorporate into my own gown. Shopping for fabric was hard, I went to the high end, middle and affordable stores and ended up with a gorgeous ivory cotton back satin from Spotlight.

I am so glad I took a chance on the old faithful Spotlight as it worked so perfectly and came in under budget! It was a difficult process to narrow down a style though, everything was gorgeous but in the end I knew this silhouette suited my body shape best and I would be comfortable all night.

The best advice I received was whilst planning: Everything that I think is going wrong or is missing is only known by me. No one else knows those details so there is no point stressing about it. There are so many things I didn’t get to do that I thought was so crucial to the joy of everyone, but it really wasn’t. We all had the best time.

Social media shows us so many ways to do things at weddings and it can feel a bit disheartening when you look at the extravagant DIY’s and fun things people do, but in the end, you’ve got your people and your partner and that’s all a wedding truly needs! I had such great ideas for table numbers and place cards but wrote them out by hand on pieces of card the morning of! I guess it was a nice personal touch.

Wedding songs...

My aisle song was by Kina Grannis - Can’t help falling in love. It was the perfect slow, soft, yet powerful song.

Once we were announced as Mr & Mrs Hollstein, Matt Corby’s song Lover played which is one of our faves.

Our first dance was Luke Burr’s acoustic cover of Is This Love.