S H E I L A + M A T H E W
Sheila and Mathew had the right idea when it came to planning their ultimate wedding: elope to the beautiful tropical island of Hawaii! Luckily 50 of their friends and family decided to make the trip and celebrate with them in one of the most spectacular settings on earth.
F R O M T H E B R I D E
How we met…
It was an office romance. Matt and I met working together for an online business in the Sydney CBD. From the first day I met him I thought he looked great in a suit, however, we both tried to keep it professional for the first year. We sat in an open plan office and his desk was directly opposite mine. There was definitely a lot of chemistry there and a romance soon blossomed.
We knew it was love…
We both agree that we knew it was love after taking a work trip to Melbourne for Derby Day. There was a moment where we were at a rooftop bar and Matt asked me if we could be officially together. I couldn’t stop smiling all night.
The engagement…
Matt proposed to me on the night of our special tradition, which is going out for a Christmas dinner date. I got home from work and opened the door, I was surprised to see Matt sitting there at the kitchen bench with beautiful red rose petals scattered around the place, a bottle of Verve champagne waiting to be cracked open, and my favourite Bob Marley song playing.
I have honestly never seen Matt so NERVOUS in his life! The usually calm and collected Matty V with sweaty palms! He had the diamond in a box waiting under the Christmas tree and he began to tell me all the things he loved about our relationship and how much he wanted to be with me forever. He then got down on one knee to pop the question “will you marry me?” It was very romantic and exciting. Yes, I cried.
T H E W E D D I N G
Our dream wedding…
We always knew that we wanted to have a destination wedding because, apart from getting married in a beautiful location by the beach with our closest friends and family, we also want to share a holiday with our loved ones and create unforgettable memories to last a lifetime. We wanted a relaxed island style wedding, but we also wanted to keep the traditional format.
Our photographer…
Our photographer was iStyle Photography in Sydney. We were referred to them by a good friend of ours who’d had them shoot their wedding previously and we had seen their great work. When I looked through their website I absolutely fell in love with the style of photos. They had also shot in Hawaii before, so naturally having a destination wedding we were confident that we’d found the right photographer for us. It was also really important to us to choose a photographer based in Sydney and we flew iStyle Photography to Hawaii to shoot our wedding. Having great photos was a big priority to us and I didn’t want to risk choosing a photographer overseas that I couldn’t meet in person. There are meetings that take place after the wedding such as choosing the wedding album, getting prints made, which is why we chose someone from home.
We absolutely love our wedding photos, they really captured the moment of being in Hawaii and our special day. iStyle Photography also did a pre-wedding shoot of us in Hawaii. We rented stand-up paddle boards one afternoon and went down to Waikiki beach on a beautiful crystal clear day with sparkling turquoise waters, and got some great fun shots of Matt and I attempting to surf!
We also did a “trash the dress” style photoshoot a couple days after the wedding. Elie, our photographer had spent some time when we arrived on the island scouting the perfect location, which was a sheltered lagoon. I thought I may as well wear my wedding dress one more time and get some great photos before I put away the dress forever. The photos turned out unbelievably.
The ceremony…
We got married in a beautiful, pristine, all-white chapel called the Ocean Crystal Chapel at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. The chapel was the perfect size for our small destination wedding of 50 guests. The day that my bridal party showed up for the wedding rehearsal everyone was literally “WOWED” by how beautiful the chapel was! So elegant, romantic, gorgeous, and filled with bright natural light – it makes my heart skip a beat just thinking about it. The chapel was air-conditioned (a necessity in the tropical Hawaiian climate!), and there was also an air-conditioned waiting room for me and the bridesmaids to wait in before the ceremony.
The reception…
We celebrated our reception in the Rainbow Suites ballroom at the Hilton Hawaiian Village. This way our wedding guests could go straight from the ceremony to the reception. The ballroom was located on a stretch of private beach at the Hilton and next to a lagoon with large double windows that opened up onto the terrace. We chose this reception venue at the recommendation of my wedding planner, who called it “the best ballroom in Waikiki”.
Pre-wedding celebrations…
As we had a destination wedding, we wanted to enjoy as much time with our guests in Hawaii before the wedding. I asked the guests to arrive on the island three days before the wedding, so we organised some pre-wedding celebrations. We started the pre-wedding celebrations with lunch at Dukes Waikiki on the Beach for Matt’s 30th birthday. It was a great get together of all our family and wedding guests who had already arrived on the island, and we drank a lot of Mai-Tais! The following day we organised a Luau at Sea Life Park, which was great fun. I wanted people to experience some culture and there was plenty of fire dancing and hula girls. The day before the wedding Matt and I spent with iStyle Photography having our pre-wedding photos taken, and that night Matt spent with the boys and I had a girls dinner.
The bridal party…
I had four bridesmaids: my best friend from college, Matt’s sister and two close friends. Matt had four groomsmen, three close mates and his cousin. My bridesmaids wore identical turquoise dresses with silver detailing around the neckline and matching silver stilettos (which were later exchanged for sandals on the dancefloor). The groomsmen’s suits were all custom-made from Meijo in Burwood. They wore dark charcoal suits with white shirts, white long ties and white pocket handkerchiefs.
The groom…
Matt’s suit was also custom-made from Mejo in Burwood and he wore dark suit pants with a white shirt, black bow-tie and white jacket. He actually woke up on our wedding day and had to go to the mall because he didn’t have any wedding shoes or cufflinks!
The gown…
My wedding dress was a Swarovski encrusted strapless bodice with a big tulle princess style skirt, with layers and layers of fabric and a long train. The seamstress altered my dress to put a hook on the back of the dress so I could hold it while dancing and could also hook it up to remove the train. It was from Brides of Sydney in Sydney CBD. I had always thought I would go with something more simple or perhaps a fishtail dress. But once I tried on a princess dress I was obsessed!
The bouquets…
I left the design of my bouquets to my wedding planner. I told her I wanted something tropical with a lot of greenery. Because we did a lei ceremony as part of our wedding, I had the most gorgeous fuchsia lei around my neck so she did a great job keeping the bouquets simple with white and green.
The reception styling…
The reception venue was decorated by my wedding planner with tall glass vases on the tables filled with lush tropical greenery and a variety of white flowers to match the bouquets. The table name cards were ordered from minted.com and matched the style of our wedding invitations.
The cake…
Our wedding cake was organised through the reception venue at the Hilton. It was a two tier round buttercream cake in chocolate and coconut flavours. The cake was decorated with flowers provided by our florist.
On the menu…
After the ceremony the guests moved to the reception area for cocktail hour, we were served Prosecco and cold beers. There were also hors d’oeuvres of teriyaki chicken skewers, sesame ahi tuna cones, prosciutto with melon skewers, basil, seared beef carpaccio and vegetable summer rolls. The cocktail hour was then followed by a sit down three-course dinner with alternating seared Mahi Mahi and Fillet Mignon for the mains. We also had a separate cocktail bar set up at the reception and the Pina Coladas and Mai-Tais were flowing all night!
The bombonniere…
We had personalised tall shot glasses made by Custom Gear in Australia, and brought them over to Hawaii with us. They had printed on them “Hawaii – Matt and Sheila 14 July 2015”. My mother-in-law wrapped them up in muslin cloth bags and filled the bags with coconut candies that we bought from the ABC stores in Hawaii.
Memorable moments…
My most memorable moment was a complete surprise that my wedding planner had organised for me. I had asked her to book some entertainment, which I thought was a fire dancer but when we all went outside on the patio there was a beautiful Hawaiian hula dancer accompanied by a singer on a ukulele. They performed two traditional Hawaiian hula songs, and then she taught the entire wedding party a hula dance. It was so hilarious seeing all the guests line up and do a hula dance! They then played the traditional Hawaiian wedding song, and Matt and I had our first dance out on the patio to a beautiful ukulele under the stars on a beautiful balmy night. It still gives me goosebumps thinking about it.
The wedding soundtrack…
I walked down the aisle in the Crystal Chapel to “Over the rainbow” which was played live by a musician on the ukulele. Our first song was an acoustic version of “Feel So Close” by Nelly Furtado, which the DJ then mixed to the Calvin Harris original and got the dance floor started! My mum, whose name is Sally, walked into the reception to the song “Mustang Sally” which was a big hit!
M A R R I E D L I F E
Our honeymoon…
We took a short flight over from Waikiki to another Hawaiian island, Maui, where we relaxed, drank cocktails, went snorkelling, swam with turtles and enjoyed our first official week together as a married couple.
Plans for the future…
To keep enjoying our married lives and to one day start a family.
In 40 years we hope to…
To be still living by each other’s side (maybe on a tropical island!).
W O R D S O F W I S D O M
On enjoying the engagement…
Try not to get too stressed about the money. This is about your love for each other so don’t worry if you can’t afford the all the things you’d like (eg the $10,000 wedding dress!). Your friends are family are there to support YOU, not to see how much money you’ve spent on everything.
Destination wedding tips…
- Wear LOTS of sunscreen the days before the wedding and make sure you don’t get any visible tan lines. I was only wearing strapless bikinis because of the strapless dress – I was super paranoid about it.
- Make sure you get to Hawaii a good few days before the wedding – we were there a week before hand. When we hopped on that plane from Sydney to Hawaii we were sooo stressed out and wound up and we really needed a few days to unwind.
- Plan some wedding group activities before/during the wedding week. You will have SO MANY people there in Hawaii for you and wanting to spend time with you, it can be overwhelming to try to spend time with everyone. I was up at 7am every morning and going to bed at midnight because there were so many friends and family there – it was exhausting! All I wanted to do was sleep!
- I recommend having everyone stay at the same hotel – it’s so much more fun and helps with logistics. We got amazing rates at the Aston Waikiki Circle Hotel.
- You need to get your Hawaii Marriage Licence 30 days before the wedding. We used a marriage agent who met us at our hotel and processed it for us. Saves you from lining up for hours in Honolulu CBD.
- We also had a wedding website, which made it really easy for guest information. We had lots of really good feedback from everyone for having the website.
- Lei Exchange Ceremony – ask your wedding planner about this. Highly recommend as part of the ceremony.
- Wedding entertainment – For wedding entertainment we had a fire dancer, a live singer on the ukulele and a hula dancer. The hula dancer also taught us a hula dance, which the wedding guests participated in – it was the highlight of the night!
- Ceremony entertainment – We had a ukulele singer sing “somewhere over the rainbow” as I walked down the isle, which was beautiful.
On the wedding day…
Have someone look after your social media account e.g. Instagram. I was too busy on the day to take my own photos and I know there are professional photos, but I wish I had more to look at while I was on my honeymoon. Organise breakfast for you and the bridal party getting ready, some easy to eat food that won’t mess up your make up. Make sure you take a bathroom break BEFORE all the speeches! I was busting to go to the toilet in the middle of the groom’s speech!
Photography & videography iStyle Photography / Wedding dress Brides of Sydney (Sydney CBD Location) / Bridesmaid dresses and shoes Forever New / Groom and groomsmen’s suits Meijo Menswear / Hairdresser Francesca Scandizzo Hair / Bomboniere (personalised shot glasses) CustomGear / Wedding invitations Minted