This week we celebrated our first wedding anniversary! I cannot believe it has already been a year since I married my wonderful cat-daddy Dean! We got married on a Sunday afternoon at Porteno Restaurant in Surry Hills, Sydney – and like most things in my life our wedding had a very feline “flavour”. Here are some of my favourite feline highlights of the day!
Long before the day itself we started with this set of beautiful invitations by the talented Liz from Chicks n Hens! We were determined to ensure that our furry family played a key role in all our celebrations, and Liz worked with us to ensure we got exactly the style and effect we were looking for. Our invites featured custom illustrations of each family member, and in the text our pets invited our guests to “the wedding of their humble servants”! Liz is an absolute pleasure to deal with and as well as doing stunning invitations she also does branding, cards and family portraits.
The morning of the wedding was surprisingly relaxing. It started out just me with my hair and make-up stylist Michelle Mae, then as the morning progressed I was joined by our photographer Mark from Gold Hat Photography, my best man, sister-in-law and a few of my closest friends. My mum hand made my morning accessories – a pink cat print robe and a maneki neko pillow for our wedding rings. I’m pretty certain it helped bring us good luck and good fortune for the day!
Time to get dressed! My sparkly shoes (oh how I love these shoes) were from Miu Miu (or mew mew as I like to call them – they are THE designer brand for the cat lover) and my amazing gown and bag were by Sandie Bizys. Sandie was amazing to work with – every step of the way she worked so closely with me to ensure we came up with a beautiful, elegant design. We both felt there was a danger that having a cat on a wedding dress could look silly, but she came up with the most stunning final result. She even designed a matching leather bag and commissioned a friend (a leathersmith) to make it for me. I love that my bag and shoes are items that I still use all the time – such a lovely reminder of such a special day.
We arrived at the venue in style – Dean and his family in two dodge darts that he arranged through a friend, and my best man drove me there in my red convertible beetle. I LOVE my car and so it was great to be able to arrive and leave in it.
And then it was time to turn my back on single life!
When it came to wedding decor I knew I wanted to continue the feline theme and luckily Dean was on board too! He was such an awesome support during the design phase – he vetoed things that he thought were too silly (or looked like they belonged at a child’s party) until we landed on some ideas.
We wanted both a cat theme and some reference to our pets as soon as our guests walked through the door – so we had a gorgeous cat piñata custom made by Dale Piñatas to collect any gifts. We also had our place cards and bonbonniere boxes custom designed by Wendy from Wonky Owl – keeping with our black, white and red colour scheme.
Perhaps one of my absolute favourite touches on the day was our cake. The cake itself was made my by beautiful cousin Nivani, and the gorgeous topper was made by Tamara from Pegged. The level of detail in her work is absolutely amazing! Our little topper is only 6″ x 6″ but it included all of our pets (our 4 cats and our 2 beautiful late cardigan corgies Maddie and Auggie who sadly both passed away aged 14 later in 2014). It also featured the most ridiculously accurate mini versions of us – right down to my dress, flowers and tattoos (!!!!) and Dean’s polka dot shirt!
After the wedding ceremony we did a quick photo shoot in the restaurant and Gardel’s Bar upstairs before settling in for some amazing food and wine with our closest friends and family. After all the festivities were over we spent a little more time taking some photos – and Mark really captured some beautiful shots!
Obviously all of the images in this post are by Gold Hat Photography and we cannot speak highly enough about our wonderful photographer Mark. As well as capturing the most beautiful images in a way that SO suited our unique style, he was also a delight to work with – making both us and our guests feel completely at ease throughout the day. Thanks to Mark’s amazing work we also had our wedding featured on Rock’n’Roll Bride!
In the end I think we succeeded in hosting a very feline, very “us” wedding. We enjoyed every minute of both the planning and the day itself SO much – it really was a day we will always treasure and never forget!
