MADELINE & JOSH'S CANBERRA WEDDING

Meet Madi and Josh, a pair of lovely lawyers who powered through six of their seven years together long-distance! “I went to university in Canberra while Josh studied in Sydney, so we’re both very familiar with the Hume Highway,” the bride tells us with a laugh.

With their time split between the two cities for so long and both their families living in Sydney, it’s no surprise Madi and Josh had intitally planned on a NSW wedding. “We had originally planned a big wedding in Sydney, with all our friends and family from around Australia and the globe. When it became clear that Sydney would not be possible due to COVID, we still wanted to go through with getting married on our nominated date,” they tell us. “We didn’t want to put our life on hold because of this pandemic! So, we threw something small together that allowed us to celebrate intimately with our friends and family.”

But small doesn’t mean any less amazing, folks, as you can see in these snaps by stellar photography duo Corinna & Dylan. With the flowers in the Old Parliament House rose garden in full bloom and a beautiful picnic, these are the sweetest spring nups ever!

THE VENUE “Canberra is a beautiful place and we were spoilt for choice with locations for our wedding. After touring around Canberra looking at potential spots, we landed on the House of Representatives Rose Gardens at Old Parliament House, which are simply divine in spring. We lucked out with the most gorgeous day with no rain and the blooming wisteria.”

LITTLE LOL “Throughout the day we were patting ourselves on the back about how well we’d organised everything and how it was a miracle we hadn’t forgotten anything. As we went to dig into the beautiful charcuterie and cheese boards we had arranged from Amici, turns out that we’d forgotten cheese knives and utensils! As we contemplated digging in with our bare hands, one of our guests stood up and provided the answer to our prayers – his camping multi-tool. We spent the afternoon cutting into beautiful cheeses with the little steel contraption. It was a huge laugh and made for some great photos.”

FAVE DETAILS “The wisteria on the day was like nothing we had ever seen. You could even hear the bees buzzing around the flowers. It was such a beautiful backdrop for our wedding. The cupcakes La Ombre Creations were also delicious! Everyone was raving about them, and our parents even took a few back to Sydney for our sisters to enjoy!”

THE DRESS “My dress was from Aje. It was the first white dress I stumbled across when I started looking for our Canberra wedding. I ordered eight others to try on and ended up going with that first one anyway! It is such a fun, floaty dress and felt very ‘me’. I thought it was absolutely perfect for the garden venue.”

REFERENCES “Hello May was a big help! We were scrambling for a photographer who would be free with a month’s notice and lucked out with Corinna & Dylan having a last-minute vacancy. We had seen their work in Hello May previously and absolutely loved it. Apart from that, we just looked locally. Canberra is full of lots of wonderful small businesses and we were spoilt for choice.”

A WORD OF ADVICE “Play it as it lies! The world is increasingly topsy turvy at the moment and if you’re lucky enough to find someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, don’t put that on hold because of things outside your control. There’s never a ‘perfect’ time for anything. The fact you are making such an important commitment to one another is what makes it perfect!”

STANDOUT VENDOR “Our photographer, Dylan (from Corinna & Dylan), was out of this world. To capture how magical and beautiful that day seemed to us is no mean feat, and we’ll cherish these photos forever.”

They’re not wrong about Corinna & Dylan, folks – these are some epic photographers, not to mention genuinely fabulous humans, and we definitely recommend hitting them up over on their directory listing if you’re searching for someone to snap your day.