WHERE:A country guesthouse located in the Byron Hinterland. We had always wanted a small wedding, and thought that a destination wedding would work well for that size. We found the venue on the internet and decided that it was perfect for us, and everything began to fall into place after that.

THEME/STYLE: Rustic, relaxed, romantic. Choosing the theme and style was easy as the guesthouse already had its own beauty and character – all we had to do was select the smaller elements to complement and enhance it.

BRIDE’S DRESS: I was living in China four months before the wedding and found a small bridal shop just before I left. The girls at Nina’s were amazing—I told them some ideas I had in mind and they were able to make and customise the dress down to the very last detail, and best of all, do it in about three weeks.

BRIDE’S SHOES: I spent weeks trying to decide what shoes to wear and scoured the entire town before finally buying some white satin shoes off the internet. However, on the big day, the shoes came off about five minutes after the ceremony and I exchanged them for a pair of comfy gum boots that our hosts at the guesthouse had very kindly bought the day before. The gum boots stayed on the entire night.

JEWELLERY/ACCESSORIES: The double flower hair clip was bought from Percy Handmade and the ivory lace bolero was bought from Mary and Angelika, both found on Etsy. Tania (Percy Handmade) and Angelika (Mary and Angelika) were both very helpful and were happy to customise their items to suit my wedding dress.

WEDDING RINGS: We wanted simple rings but it was also important to us that they were meaningful. For a while we didn’t have a clue what to do but by chance, we came across Larsen Jewellery, who offered a four-hour Wedding Ring Experience where we could make the rings ourselves, under the guidance of a professional jeweller. We started with a block of metal, and then went through a process of cutting it, flattening it, bending it, joining the ends, and a lot of filing and polishing. Quite a bit of work, but it was lots of fun, educational, and an experience we’ll remember for a lifetime.

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GROOM/GROOMSMEN: Eamon’s outfit consisted of a dark grey three-piece suit, made by Rui Fu Xiang, a well-known silk and fabric store in China that dates back to the Qing Dynasty. Again, the entire process only took about a week.

HAIR AND MAKEUP: Julie Corbet, a Byron-based hairdresser and make-up artist, provided my hair and makeup for the wedding. Julie knew exactly what style I was looking for and having her there to talk to amidst all the usual wedding chaos was very relaxing.

STATIONERY/INVITATIONS: Choosing our invitations was one of the hardest decisions to make—there were so many excellent designs and we needed to commit ourselves to one which would set the scene for the rest of the wedding.

We ordered our invitations from Minted—an online store of paper goods from independent graphic designers around the world. The staff at Minted were exceptional—they were very responsive and professional, and showed a lot of attention to detail. Their products arrived promptly and were beautifully packaged.

Other stationery such as menus, tags and quote cards we made ourselves using Photoshop, online DIY wedding templates and a colour laser printer.

WEDDING FAVORS/BONBONNIERE: All of our guests came from out of town so we wanted to give them some gifts that reflected the Byron region. We ordered some chocolate-covered macadamias and assorted jams and marmalades from local producers. The calico bags for the macadamias were bought from Etsy.

FLOWERS: Flowers on the Run provided most of the flowers and were very experienced with styling the flowers to match the look and feel of the wedding venue. On the morning of the wedding, Eamon and my dad also made a quick dash to a roadside nearby and collected some goldenrod flowers for additional decoration.

PHOTOGRAPHY: Christine of Pobke Photography, and her second shooter, El, came along to shoot the wedding. One of the main reasons that we picked Christine was her ability to capture the intimacy and warmth between people, in addition to her excellent technical skill, which worked well with our small wedding.

VIDEOGRAPHER: Eamon’s brother, Jimmy, is a professional videographer who covered the wedding.

CEREMONY AND RECEPTION DÉCOR DETAILS:One of the challenges we faced was not being at the venue in person until three days before the wedding. We relied very heavily on pictures of the guesthouse from the internet, and had to experiment quite a bit. I collected a lot of items in the four months before the wedding, for example, old books, jars, candleholders and picture frames from around town, and bought others, such as candelabra and wedding forks, from the internet.

On the big day, it was really Hayley from Divinity Signature Events, the folks at the guesthouse, and our florist, Flowers on the Run, who brought everything together. Their experience and understanding of the venue meant that they could harmonise all the little details to create a consistent wedding theme in a short amount of time. It was really impressive going from seeing all the decorations scattered around my room in the morning, and then coming down to the ceremony a few hours later to see them all in their rightful places.

WEDDING CO-ORDINATOR:Hayley from Divinity Signature Events was our life-saver on the day of the wedding. She knew exactly what we wanted and had everything up and running in the background while we were busy rushing around being the centre of attention.

CAKE: Charlotte from Let Them Eat Cake provided a dark chocolate mud cake with chocolate ganache filling. She presented us with a whole range of options and the fact that she was willing to customise the cake in any way we wanted made her very easy to work with.

ENTERTAINMENT: Súnas is a four-piece, Brisbane-based Celtic folk band that were friends with Eamon’s parents. They were a real hit at the wedding and guests enjoyed dancing to their lively music after the ceremony.

FOOD & DRINKS:Simon and his team at EatDrink provided the catering for the wedding, which was delicious. Simon was fantastic: responding to my emails at all hours of the day, remembering all the little details, and providing much guidance given our inexperience with the wedding venue and with weddings in general. The canapés in the afternoon were also an excellent idea as they broke up the long day and gave guests some energy before the reception in the evening.

A MEMORABLE MOMENT: There were lots. We will all probably remember the rain, which poured and poured and just when we thought it could not rain any more, poured even harder! Three days before the wedding, Eamon almost missed his flight back into the country. While it was stressful at the time, the relief afterwards relaxed us and made for some interesting talk at the wedding.

For me, one of my most treasured memories was turning around the corner to the ceremony and seeing all the familiar faces of our friends and family, who were waiting for us there. I was very moved that they had all made the long journey to the wedding to be with us, and seeing them there definitely made it real.

BEST ADVICE FOR PLANNING A WEDDING/TO BRIDES: Enjoy the journey as much as the destination—the wedding itself is only one day while the wedding planning process can take months. For me, my favourite parts of the wedding process were making some of the stationery and collecting bits and pieces, which I will remember fondly.

Be prepared that things will easily not go perfectly according to plan, but be aware that this might not actually matter on the big day, or that it might be a good thing! I spent weeks trying to find the right wedding shoes but ended up wearing gum boots from Target for most of the wedding because of the rain. Try to focus on the bigger picture if the smaller things are beginning to get stressful.

The internet is a very, very valuable resource. I went through countless wedding websites for inspiration, got a lot of advice from wedding forums, downloaded DIY wedding templates, and bought most of my decorations, my shoes and accessories off the internet. Etsy deserves a worthy mention as it gave me access to a range of unique items from around the world. The Etsy sellers that I dealt with were excellent: friendly, helpful, responsive, and happy to customise.

If possible, choose wedding suppliers that know each other. We were lucky enough that our florist, caterer, makeup artist/hairdresser, celebrant and wedding co-ordinator were all very familiar with the venue and, as a result, worked well with one another to bring everything together.

KUN + EAMON'S CONTACTS:

PHOTOGRAPHY: Pobke Photography (Canberra) 

BRIDE'S DRESS: Nina’s (Beijing)

BRIDE’S SHOES: Deseo Bridal and Evening Shoes (Sydney) 

GROOM’S FORMAL WEAR: Rui Fu Xiang Silk and Fabric Store (Beijing) 

WEDDING RINGS: Larsen Jewellery (Sydney and Melbourne) 

JEWELLERY & ACCESSORIES:

Ivory lace bolero from Mary and Angelika Etsy Store (Tel-Aviv) 

Double flower hair clip from Percy Handmade (Canberra) 

Necklace from McGlades Jewellers (Canberra) 

HAIR: Julie Corbet (Byron) 

MAKEUP: Julie Corbet (Byron) 

STATIONERY/INVITATIONS: Minted (San Francisco) 

FLORIST: Flowers on the Run (Byron) 

CAKE: Let Them Eat Cake (Byron) 

CATERING: EatDrink (Byron) 

WEDDING CO-ORDINATOR: Divinity Signature Events (Byron)  

ENTERTAINMENT: Súnas (Brisbane) 

VIDEOGRAPHER: Jimmy Logue