Couple: Danielle and John
Date: 7th November, 2009
Location: Mulberry Mansion, Fremantle, Western Australia.
Photography: Our photography was by Nina Otranto (a sister of a friend). We chose to have all our photos taken at the venue, we didn’t want to leave and miss any of the celebrations! Nina was wonderful, she was able to provide natural photos that documented the details and special moments from our wedding.

Gown: A beautiful cotton wedding dress by Collette Dinnigan. I really loved the broderie anglaise detailing.
Shoes: Mine were from Django & Juliette, John’s were from Florsheim.
Suit: Ermenegildo Zegna.
Accessories: My floral necklace and John’s matching enamel cufflinks were by local Fremantle designers Loop.  My earrings were by Pip Keane.
Hair:  Hair was styled at my local hairdresser, Hair Venue (u2/219 Hampton Rd, South Fremantle, WA), just down the road.
Makeup: I bought some beautiful Dior products and did my own make-up.
Flowers: Flowers were arranged by Caroline at the Boatshed Market, Cottesloe, WA. My bouquet was made up of white peonies, wrapped with unbleached linen ribbon.
Ceremony: Mulberry Mansion, Fremantle, WA.  Mulberry Mansion is a holiday home in Fremantle, which is also available to use for weddings. It was perfect for us as we wanted to have an intimate backyard wedding and the gardens provided a beautiful setting to get married in. We also loved the artistic details and use of salvaged natural materials throughout the house. It was great as we were able to have our ceremony and reception in the one venue, and also had accommodation for up to 12 guests. We chose to keep things simple and not have a bridal party as it seemed too formal for our relaxed style of wedding. Instead our brothers presented the rings during the ceremony, John’s sister helped hold my bouquet and two of our friends came up and signed as witnesses.
Celebrant: Our celebrant was Stacey Morris. She was absolutely fantastic throughout the whole process and helped create the perfect ceremony for us.
Reception: Mulberry Mansion, Fremantle WA. We had a cocktail style reception. Heyder & Shears provided the catering. Their food was of such a high standard and tasted amazing! Our menu included hot and cold canapés as well as larger stand up substantials so our guests were all well fed. For dessert we had a range of individual tarts from CakeBox along with strawberries and our yummy wedding cake.
Music: Our processional song was ‘Beautiful to Me’ by Little Birdy. We made our own playlists for the reception.
Decoration: At the entrance to the house we placed a blackboard (made by John), with a handwritten welcome message and large red balloon. We scattered vases of flowers and handmade candles inside and out. Round bar tables were covered with linen table cloths. We strung a beautiful paper heart garland around the doors leading into the backyard (it was handmade using recycled storybook paper by Alarna at Little Jane St).
Stationery: Our save the dates featured white paper doves from O-check. We gocco-ed onto recycled card to make ‘save the date tags’ and attached one to each dove using red thread. Our invitations were postcard style (featuring tree and bird motifs) by Poppies for Grace. They were printed on slightly textured white card stock using black vegetable based ink and sent in recycled envelopes which sealed with a button and string tie back.
Cake: My Mum kindly made the cake for us – there were two layers of mudcake – dark chocolate and citrus white chocolate. The gorgeous fabric birds that topped the cake were custom made by Ashley Anna Brown and I made the little stand for them – covered with linen fabric and trims.
Budget Tip:
We saved money:
* by hiring a venue that could be used for the ceremony and reception (plus accommodation for some of the guests).
* by making  a self serve bar area and supplying our own drinks.
* by putting together our own music (using a laptop and speakers) instead of hiring a DJ or band.
* by doing a lot of DIY decor.
Eco-friendly Tip:
* We had a bin set aside for our guests to place all their recyclables from the evening.
* We borrowed and hired items where possible.
* We used salvaged items as part of our decor (such as an old crate found on the side of the road to hold the rose petal cones).
* I handmade soy candles in glass jars, which were scattered around as part of the decor and lighting.
* We wanted to give our guests a practical bonbonniere gift that they would actually use. I came up with a design featuring a tree and two ‘lovebirds’  and had it screen-printed onto unbleached linen tea towels using environmentally friendly solvent-free ink. (Ed: lucky for us, Danielle is selling these gorgeous tea towels on Etsy here). We packaged the tea towels in brown paper bags. The guests names were hand-stamped onto recycled tags (which featured the same tree motif as our invitations) and attached using red loveheart paper-clips from Kikki-K.
Handmade Tip:
I bought a ream of tissue paper and with the help of friends and family made heaps of white tissue paper poms. They worked out to be really cost effective and looked so pretty all hanging up! Here is the tutorial from Martha Stewart Weddings to make them yourself. We also made paper wedding cones from old sheet music to hold the rose petal confetti  for the ceremony from a tutorial on the Once Wed blog.
Something Special: We hired a retro photobooth from Push the Button Photobooths.
The booth printed out two photo strips at a time, one for us to keep and one for our guests to take home. It provided lots of entertainment and fun on the evening and we ended up with a fantastic collection of photos! It’s so great to look back at them now and see everyone having such a good time!

The whole day was so special, it really was everything we could have hoped for!!

Tags:  Collette Dinnigan, Eco-friendly, Etsy, Fremantle, Handmade, Mulberry Mansion, Spring, WA

Categories:  Garden Weddings, Perth, Relaxed, White