Kim and Andrew // Headland Park
Whitsunday Wedding Suppliers
Ceremony Venue: Headland Park
Reception Venue: Whitsundays Pavilion
Hair & Makeup: Samantha Richardson
Florist: Flower Hut
Photographer: Brooke Miles Photography
Celebrant: Jan Harvey
Ceremony Décor: Azure Whitsunday Weddings & Events
Reception Décor: Event Co
Entertainment: The Fox
Caterer: Whitsundays Sailing Club
Wedding Cake: Fairbairn Bakery
Accommodation: Pinnacles Waterfront Apartments
Marquee: Whitsundays Party Hire
Your Love Story
“With both of us being beginning teachers – work had arranged for us to attend a Beginning Teachers conference”.
Andrew who taught out of town had arrived a little early to the conference and was already seated with other staff from his school. Just as the conference was about to start though, this spectacularly good looking girl walked through the bi fold doors into the conference hall. With seating now at a premium, Kim headed to a crowded table where she recognised her sister in law. However, Andrew’s teaching partner, who had been to Uni with Kim came to the rescue, calling out for her to sit at their table.
Once Kim sat down and caught sight of Andrew, butterflies immediately erupted in her stomach. With a nervous smile both of them introduced themselves to each other. Kim remembers the butterflies sticking around all day and made sure she was in all of his groups so that she could get to know him better.
And Andrew quickly learned that Kim had a positively wicked sense of humour and was great company. He too made an effort to be in all of Kim’s groups for that day.
Over the next months, we saw each other often at social occasions, and finally one night, Andrew made his move.
This was nearly a disaster though as when he tried to call her the connection didn’t work! He was a bit heartbroken thinking that Kim had blown him off! Little did he know, Kim was on Vodaphone, and had terrible reception, asking why he didn’t send through his number she took down his number the old fashioned way. Both of us started texting and inviting each other to social events, and the rest is history……
The Proposal
We had gone for a holiday to the Gold Coast on the April school holidays in 2016.
While Kim was at a baby shower, I raced around looking for florists, looking for red roses. Not being a local in the Gold Coast made this task very difficult, some places had closed and others did not have what he was after. Finally, Andrew managed to find the perfect roses.
I took them up the elevator of the Q1, with a lot of people in awe and wondering what the special occasion was. I replied with, ‘no special occasion.’
When I reached our floor, I hid the roses in a cupboard so that Kim would not find them before heading off to pick her up.
As Kim got back to the apartment, knowing I would normally give her flowers, for no reason and had been waiting for a good 7 years for me to pop the questions, jokingly said as she got into the room. ‘Oh, I half expected flowers to be in here,’ with a smile from ear to ear. Oh I had got her flowers, but it was not the right time.
That evening I had planned to take her for a walk at sunset along the beach, to ask her to marry me, followed by a dinner and show at Draculas. While she was having a shower and getting ready I covered the bed in rose petals and flowers. She was supposed to see these after we got back from our evening out, however in search for a tissue to take with her to dinner, she stumbled across the flower petals and roses. I thought my surprise had been compromised. Kim had a bit of a laugh, due to the conversation we had earlier about flowers, and thought they were beautiful.
I took Kim down to the beach, a little too late for sunset, however still pretty. I felt Kim did have an inkling that something was happening as I felt her hand try to feel for something in my back pocket, but she didn’t feel anything so just thought it was a beautiful walk along the beach.
As we walked past a few people on the beach we were now alone. I started to talk about how much I love her and how she makes me feel and I said, ‘I think it’s about time I ask you to marry me.’
Kim looked a bit confused, I got down on one knee and grabbed her hand (the wrong hand, which Kim fixed pretty quick smart) and asked Kim to marry me. Again she had a smile from ear to ear and said the words that I wanted to hear, ‘Yes!’
Honeymoon Heaven
We look forward to going on the trip of a lifetime which we booked through Escape Travel. We took 6 weeks of long service leave to travel to Europe, Kim for the first time.
During the first 8 days we will be travelling to Athens to catch an 8 day cruise through the Greek isles. Following this we will fly to Sorrento to take a train down to Pompeii for a day trip. From there we head further north up to London to see Stone Henge, Oxford and some west end shows. Not to mention the Harry Potter experience! (oh and we slot in some time to visit family as well).
From there with the easy going luxury part of our tour over, we join a Winter Contiki tour that travels through most of Central Western Europe. At the end of the tour we then travel back to London to see more sights of the English country side then head home.
Hens and Bucks
Andrew spent a weekend away with his mates at a campsite, while Kim went to Brisbane with her girlfriends. She went rock climbing followed by an afternoon of games in the hotel room, dinner then a Magic Men show in the evening.
Splurge Vs Save
From before Andrew had proposed he had been saving discreetly for some time – when Kim who also used Andrew’s bank accounts to manage her finances discovered his large savings he had a bit of awkward explaining to do!
All up including the boys suits, photographer, accommodation and travel to and from Airlie beach – as well as reception and ceremony – the total cost was around $22k.
We ran pretty much to budget – in fact on the day after the wedding we emptied the last of our budgeted funds from our account to go out for a dinner date, just of the two of us, as husband and wife.
We planned to have unexpected expenses, which was a bit of a god send as we had a few minor issues to work out as the wedding approached. For example, Kim’s first hair colouring didn’t take – neither did the second attempt to fix it. So she needed a full day to have it fixed in Airlie beach.
Jess our wedding planner was instrumental in keeping our costs down by putting us in touch with a range of vendors. In the end by budgeting for these unexpected issues – when they didn’t eventuate – we had some spare cash left over to extend the photographer, Brooke Miles, further into the evening.
We were also very lucky that a local (Hervey Bay) arts and crafts store was having a closing down sale and we were able to source the flower girl basket, paper and ribbons from them at a great price.
Whitsunday Wedding Venue
Last year in January, we had our first venture to Airlie Beach together and we were amazed by its beauty. Everywhere you looked it was just so picturesque. I remember sitting on the balcony of the Whitsunday Vista Resort, thinking:
“Wow! Wouldn’t this be a good destination for a wedding”.
Originally Andrew and I had our hearts set on Bali for a destination wedding, however with family financially unable to attend, we thought, it was meant to be in Airlie after all.
There were two things I had my heart set on, a beautiful ceremony with both greenery and ocean and a reception that was an outside reception, hopefully overlooking the water and Airlie definitely delivered.
In October of last year, I ventured back to Airlie on my own, as I was still living in Emerald at the time and Andrew had already moved back to Hervey Bay. I fell in love with the very first two venues I looked at. Nothing else was comparable. I FaceTimed Andrew later at these venues and provided him with an abundance of photos and we both agreed these would be our venues and began the process from there.
Wedding Day Vision
To begin, like most brides, I was baffled by all the choices and everything that you see in magazines and to be honest I had no idea what I wanted for a style, except I had been thinking of purple due to that being my favourite colour.
While travelling through Bali last December, I spotted a beautiful navy blue dress with white lace that was just perfect and from there I pictured everything for the first time, not in purple but in navy. I started researching the internet and Pinterest to get ideas.
Jess, the wedding planner, also provided us with an extensive catalogue of items available from all the local wedding suppliers from in town. As soon as I saw the lanterns and I knew these were going to work perfectly with navy and went from there with selecting and purchasing the rest of the decorations.
DIY Details
With so much help and support from the wedding planners, we didn’t need to do much ourselves, however there are a few things we found or liked that we had to have, create or even change to make them perfect. As I mentioned earlier the wedding favours were all put together by hand, unfortunately due to people with illnesses and the Buck’s night, these were created solely by Kim, 12 hours later, every guest had a beautiful gift to consume either at the wedding or to take home.
Along with that Kim and I both painted a few different items, such as the Kim&Andrew sign white; and the lantern wishing well lid – which was originally brown and was changed to silver to match the theme.
We also purchased from Bunnings, little tea light lanterns for the garden to place on shepherds hooks for the ceremony and Kim decorated those with navy blue ribbon.
We also found some blackboard boxes with lights attached that we had to write on in fancy writing – again with Kim being more creative I let her take the reins on those.
Everything looked spectacular on the day.
Gifting the Guests
A gift for the guests was quite a tricky one, we had been to weddings before where they offered chocolate or plants to take home or even jars of chutney, however we needed to work out a gift that would be able to driven in a hot car for over 9 hours.
I began to research on Ebay some ideas for wedding favours and stumbled across some lovely laser cut patterns that could be folded into boxes. Inside I chose lollies that could withstand the heat and were a bit of fun like popping candy, sour worms, hard candy and even skulls and bones (which I thought would be fun for the kids but they tasted too good to only let the kids have them). Ian, Andrew’s brother and best man asked why the skulls and bones and I had the quick and witty remark…
“Till death do us part”.
Funniest Moment
Throughout the ceremony we had some funny stories, the funniest moment was when super eager Kim blurted out ‘I Will’ a full sentence before the celebrant had finished speaking and everyone erupted into laughter.
Remarkable Memories
While the whole day was special, some outstanding memories were: Firstly, the vows that we had written for each other, they were so heart felt and so personal; standing under the pavilion overlooking the water with fairy lights above us having our first dance. The setting was just magical and also to see everything set up for the first time when we entered both locations. Our wedding planner had listened to every bit of information we had sent through and had nailed the set up!
Special Thanks and Supplier Shout Outs
As this was a destination wedding, we would like to give special thanks to all our guests for travelling so far to join us on our special day. Thank you to our parents, as they have help to shape us into the people we are today and our families for their support and love.
We would also like to give special thanks for all those who worked so hard behind the scenes, the wedding planners, the staff at the sailing club, the event organisers for setting it all up, our photographer, Brooke Miles, for capturing our beautiful day, the amazing hair and make-up artists, Samantha Richardson and our band, The Fox, for bashing out some good tunes.
Bride’s Wisdom
My advice to other brides would be don’t be afraid to ask for help.
Personally I am so glad I used a wedding planner, they made everything so easy. They have a list of things that need to be done throughout the process and they give you the ability if you want to, to add extra things whenever you like.
Another bit of advice for brides would be to have a budget and ensure that you have a little extra up your sleeve in case of little unexpected costs along the way.
But most importantly enjoy every moment, your day will go so fast. Look at the smiles of your guests, take in little detail that has gone into the preparation and cherish your special day.
