Stacey & Jak - Caleche Selma Wedding Dress

We normally talk about how our couples met but we were so amazed with this bride having had her florist bail out the day before her wedding and pulled together her amazing bouquet made from fake flowers from Kmart! Stacey we are so impressed and amazed by your creativity and positivity. On another note can we just talk about about super adorable these love birds were having meet in a club at Madi Gras and dated for 7 years. Jak might not have had the most elaborate proposal but the story behind these two special people was just too precious to not share with the world. Congratulations Stacey + Jak!

#RCREALBRIDE Stacey wore the beautiful ‘Selma’ by Australian wedding dress designer Caleche. A fitted gown with sweetheart neckline, this dress enjoys the detail of two laces combining to create one modern look. An uncorded Chantilly lace is appliqued underneath a thicker metallic lace over top. The slinky skirt made in a soft stretch satin compliments the bodice detail perfectly.

Photographer: Ivy Road Photography

THE FIRST SIGHT

Jak and I met in a nightclub called 77 in Sydney’s CBD on Mardi Gra’s 2009! We were both pretty drunk and we danced pretty much all night and got each other’s’ phone numbers, the next few days we met up and just hit it off.

My first thought was that he was really cute, with little chipmunk cheeks haha. There was defiantly instant attraction, when I first met him I don’t remember thinking I’d see him again, I was very carefree. I remember thinking ‘Well if he calls he calls…if he doesn’t ah well!’ but after dating him a few weeks I just kind of knew we’d be together forever, I don’t know how to describe it but you just know. Our first date was at his house, he actually made me dinner and we just chilled it was nice and easy, come to think of it very easy from the start.

THE PROPOSAL

We’d been dating for 7 years and I defiantly didn’t see it coming, it was 2 years ago now and we were in bed about to go to sleep and he just rolled over and asked! My response went something along the lines like “You’re joking? Are you being serious?” haha and then he’d told me he’d been looking for rings and he was really frustrated because he couldn’t find anything that he liked and he was so nervous I wouldn’t like anything (I make jewellery so you can imagine how picky I am) and he just wanted to ask me already so he did! We went together the next day and told my parents and my mother gave me her grandmothers yellow diamond ring. Worked out pretty well!

THE VENUE

The venue was breathtaking – you could loose yourself for hours in the view – which is the reason we chose it, we love the mountains and hilltops, we loved that everything that was there in one place. It had the chapel, reception and accommodation (that was another plus as we had family and friends that was traveling a distance to be at to our wedding). It wasn’t a particularly hard choice, I got onto a website called WedShed and for a week every time I got some spare time I would be scrolling through this site (it’s seriously the best site!) we found 5 venues we didn’t hate and then out of them we chose the best one. We then went to Queensland to see it and it was perfect, we didn’t want to spend a lot of our time going around to different venues as we really didn’t want to waste our time.

As soon as we saw SummerGrove we knew it was the place and it was the easiest choice ever, and it was the only place we went and viewed! Research is your best friend!

FAVOURITE MOMENT

Probably when I first got to Jak after walking down the aisle, I stepped up and we kissed, and I think it made us both feel a lot less nervous; Shelley snapped a real cute picture of it too and it’s probably my favourite photo. I also loved the photographs with just Jak and myself, Shelley was amazing, and it was just so nice to be alone with him for a little while and just relax in his arms.

THE DRESS

I honestly felt amazing, I felt so beautiful, like there was no way I could take a bad photo. I have never felt that pretty in my life it was just the most amazing dress.

I tried on about 5 dresses at a different shop before I decided I needed to do more research – once I had the experience of trying on wedding dresses, I decided very quickly into the process that I did not like it. So here I was with a tiny problem I needed to overcome so to fix the issue I found a picture of the one I wanted and tracked it down. I went to Melbourne to try it on and bam! I got it 🙂 loved it straight away, I think what I loved most was the satin/silk on the bottom half, it’s just so stunning and made me feel so luxurious and I loved that it had a small train but not too big. It just looked effortlessly elegant which I loved, I wanted that… just rolled out of bed and fell into a gown kinda look ya know?

FINDING THE ONE

Everyone was just so helpful and really gave me space to decide, they didn’t push or ask me too many questions they just helped and stood back when they knew I was deciding, The first bridal boutique I visited I found it really stressful and felt like I needed to make a quick decision but it was the complete opposite at Raffaele Ciuca, it was just a really relaxing experience and not stressful at all.

ADVICE FOR OTHER BRIDES

Here are my Wedding tips – learn when to say no and remember that no one will notice anything that’s gone wrong, if you can step back and realise that there’s no point in stressing, you will have a much more enjoyable day together. If you start to stress just remember why you’re actually there, it’s not for the drinks or flowers or makeup it’s to get married to the person you love so along as that happens it’s been a success right? We had a few people who tried to bring extra guests who weren’t on the list – last minute – like I’m talking the night before! It was so stressful and we just had to say no to them, as much as you want everyone to come and be happy and don’t want relatives angry at you, you have to realise that you’ve done as much as you can and when there’s venues and vendors involved your hands are pretty much tied.

When they say everything can go wrong, they meant it! We had problems with our original florist and ended up having to find a new one the day before the wedding. We went to look around for a florist in Coolangatta and we found one! The girls got together these beautiful bunches of native flowers for us that just looked stunning and only cost a fraction of the price! As for my bouquet -Well…*Cough* full disclosure. I ended up going to K-mart and buying some bunches of fake flowers and making them into a bouquet! No-one knew! So what I’m saying is – don’t stress – it will all turn out fine and no-one will be looking at the flowers on the tables or the fake flowers in your hands.

Relationship Tips: I think it’s important to be understanding and not have unreasonable expectations, remember you are both only human! You will both make mistakes and do things the other doesn’t like, but as long as you remember why you’re both still in the relationship and hopefully the answer is because you love each other very much and couldn’t stand to be without one another. You should be able to just let go of the little things, enjoy each others company. Life is too short to be spent fighting or bickering, laughing is much more fun!