Kati & Rob

There are not many couples who would be as calm the night before their wedding when a superstorm is predicted and your wedding venue tells you, that perhaps you should just call it off. But for Kati and Rob, they were as cool as cucumbers as they quickly found a brand new location, umbrellas and tied the knot in the most beautiful of styles. Thankfully for us, Sean & Danni also stepped up to the plate, a little rain not dissuading them from taking beautiful images of the day!

And perhaps Kati & Rob just didn’t want to wait any longer. After all, these two met as teenagers, a romance blossoming with sneakily held hands under English class desks. It all culminated in an utterly romantic proposal in the bride’s very favourite spot in the world. Kati shares the story. “Rob proposed to me after 8 years in our favourite spot in the whole world, The Hill in Burleigh Heads. We moved to the Gold Coast for his football four years ago and fell in love with Burleigh Heads so it was the perfect spot. I am a Christmas enthusiast (who isn’t, best holiday ever) and I thought he was going to be away in Melbourne for Christmas but he came home on Christmas Eve and insisted we went to The Hill to watch the sunset and have a few beers on our picnic blanket. Turns out he had been in Melbourne picking up the ring and asking my parents for their blessing.”

In true Melbourne spirit, Kati and Rob didn’t let a little rain deter them, in fact, a huge storm was the reason they found The Old Church Red Hill last minute for their ceremony, Kati explaining “We actually had booked another venue for our ceremony but we were faced with ‘the biggest super storm Melbourne has seen for 30 years’ on our wedding day. Our wedding planner unhelpfully told us we should cancel the whole thing the night before the wedding, which wasn’t an option so we ended up finding The Old Church in Red Hill which was perfect because it still had the beautiful feeling of being outside with the huge window behind us.”

Kati knew the exact gown she would buy, even before she needed to! The bride choosing a long sleeve lace gown by Rue de Seine from The Bridal Atelier. “I got my dress from The Bridal Atelier and it was the only dress I tried on and the only one I ever intended on trying on. I had seen it online and knew it would be the dress I got married in. I had even shown the dress to Rob before we were engaged and said something along the lines of ‘this is my dream wedding dress’. I travelled down to Melbourne for the weekend with a few girlfriends and as soon as I put it on I knew it was the dress for me.”

“My dad walked me down the aisle to “Rather Be” by Clean Bandit” tells Kati. “It’s my favourite song and we wanted something a little bit different from the usual wedding aisle songs. We played it at my hen’s weekend and it got all my girlfriends up and dancing so I knew it would be perfect to walk down the aisle to.”

Kati and Rob chose Marry Me Megan to officiate their ceremony, telling “We wanted the ceremony to be super relaxed and not too long. We didn’t have any readings and really wanted it to just be focused on our vows to each other. We pretty much said our vows, said I do, swapped rings and then had a big kiss! The whole set up of the ceremony was very natural and because of the rain outside there was a beautiful mist through the big window we got married in front of.”

“The bride shares “My favourite part of wedding planning was seeing it all come to life on the day. A year of organising and planning suddenly comes to life and it’s the best feeling!”

The bright and beautiful floral arrangements were styled by the bride and her tribe. She tells “I chose to have Australian Natives because they are my favourite, also we had some of my family fly over from England for the wedding and I really wanted to give them some authentic Aussie decorations. My mother in law organised all of the flowers herself and then with the help of my mum, bridesmaids and a few extra girlfriends we whipped up the flower crowns, bridal bouquets, pins for the boys and flowers for the tables.”

Of their photographers, the bride raves “We had Sean and Danny and they were amazing! They were so easy to work with and made us both feel so comfortable. Rob actually hates having his photo taken and gets super awkward when posing for photos but he commented that he couldn’t believe how good it was being photographed because it wasn’t awkies at all! They really are an amazing team and get every shot you could ask for. Our only regret is that we didn’t have them for the whole day!”

The rain did not stop the celebrations! Guests joined the newlyweds on private property, decorated with the bride’s handmade projects. Kati explains “We DIYed A LOT! From the invitations to the flowers, to the pallet tables, to the Moroccan floor cushions, to the bar setup, to the flower crowns, to the signage. One of my best friends even made our amazing wedding cake. It was mostly hand made, just the way we like it!”

“One of my favourite details was the Polaroid photo wall which we made to get photos of everyone as well as to encourage everyone to get in the Polaroids (rather than at our engagement where we ended up with about 100 Polaroids of the same two people who got very snap happy with the Polaroid…). “remembers Kati. “It had things written like “take a photo with someone you’ve never met before”, “take a photo with a groomsmen” and “take a photo of a group cheers”. This worked really well and we ended up with some AWESOME photos!”

Kati and Rob served up delicious woodfired pizza to their guests from Pizza Wagon.

The groom chose the first dance, an old favourite – Elvis! “Rob actually chose the first dance song which was ‘Burning Love’ by Elvis Presley. He loves Elvis so I wasn’t surprised he chose this song, it was upbeat and fast and Rob even dipped me, which was a highlight of the dance” tells Kati.

The rain didn’t leave everyone unharmed, the bride remembering “We had a few of our guests end up head to toe covered in mud because of the big storm outside of the teepee. They slipped and ended up lying in the mud! Nobody seemed to mind too much, possibly because of the number of drinks being consumed!”

A big congratulations to you both Kati and Rob! Thank you for telling us the stories of your day! Thank you also to Sean & Danni for sharing today’s celebratory imagery with us!