This Groom Just Won Husband of the Year After Transforming Their Entire Backyard into the Bride’s Dream Venue

With a little help from her wedding photographer sister, the talented Brooke at Honey Gem Creative, this gorgeous bride tied the knot to her longtime love in an intimate ceremony in her very own backyard (how sweet is that?!) After her amazing hub renovated their entire backyard to prepare for the Big Day (#1 husband award), the bride and Brooke had one month to plan the wedding! Sounds crazy right? Well boy did they pull it off... Not only that, they were sweet enough to provide some tips for future brides who are planning their own wedding! Keep on reading to find out what they are, and don't forget to check out the full gallery of stunning images!

From Brooke at Honey Gem Creative... This wedding is a special one! It's my sisters wedding. We're both wedding photographers so we couldn't wait to start planning and designing.

How They Met

From the Bride... Perry and I met in high school on the basketball court. I was practicing my free throws in the empty gym and he walked in. I had seen him around and recognized him. He was a bit if a spunk. Although he was in the grades above me so I was shocked when he came up to ask me if I wanted to play a game of 1 on 1. Of course I said yes and from then on we played basketball after school together until the sun went down. It really was love at first sight and we’ve pretty much been together ever since then. High School Sweethearts thats for sure. We finally got married after 17 years together and 6 years of being engaged. It took Perry quite a while to propose and he knew I was wanting him to propose and I’m not good at surprises so he had to plan the proposal well enough for me not to ruin the surprise. He took me to a fancy high end restaurant in Melbourne called Vue De Monde and a friend of his worked there at the time so he gave her the ring ahead of time. It was actually my birthday. We had a beautiful lunch with champagne and I won’t lie I was expecting a proposal but we got to desert and NOTHING. 

From the Florist... This was REMI + GOLD's first wedding in the beautiful continent of Australia and there are hardly words for the incredible experience we had flowering near the amazing city of Melbourne for Honey Gem Creative! We sourced everything locally and met some of the most wonderful vendors who provided us with everything from the most stunning and fragrant garden roses to locally grown lush pepperberries. We even ventured out to forage in the brides backyard for the most beautiful eucalyptus we'd ever seen! (Top Secret: We sourced almost every inch of the giant hanging installation from the lush backyard!) It was an actual dream come true to design for this special couple and we'll have forever left a piece of our hearts in Australia!

From the Sister/Photographer/Planner...The planning process was a little bit challenging because we only had 1 month to pull everything together. My sister wanted to get married in her backyard. Her backyard backed onto a reserve which had a lot of greenery and gum trees so it was a great location. The backyard needed a renovation and would be ready 1 month before the wedding. 

Wedding Planning Tips for Future Brides:

1. Ways to bring cohesion into your wedding:

- Ask your florist to add greenery to your bar, signage, welcome table, cocktail tables, and buffet table
- Make sure all your signage is created by the same designer so all fonts and colors are the same
- Ask your florist to add bud vases with blooms to your cocktail tables, bar, guest tables, lounge areas, welcome table, and buffet table. Make sure you have a good amount so it doesn't look incomplete.
- Prior to the wedding collect candles (with clear cylinders) and votives so that you can place them throughout. These can be used on your guest tables, sweetheart table, at your ceremony, on welcome tables, at the bar, on cocktail tables and at lounge areas (you can also sell these after). Make sure you have a good amount so it doesn't look incomplete. We wish we ordered more. They also look amazing at night!

2. Narrow down your design board

Rather than coming up with 10 different bouquets try to narrow it down to 1 specific bouquet you like. We had too many different options.

3. Pick your color schemes early on

Because we had seen so many weddings we had too many ideas and couldn't make a decision about colors. Coming up with your colors early on and sticking to them will make the planning process easier. That way all your florals, linens, signage/paper goods and bridesmaid dresses will look cohesive and consistent.

4. Repurpose

If you have a wedding planner/coordinator who can move florals during the wedding repurposing florals is a great way to enhance the design elements of your wedding. For example, using your ceremony florals at your sweetheart table or cake table or using your bridesmaid bouquets as centerpieces.

5. Making a statement

If you're on a budget for florals consider using greenery and candles on your guest tables and investing more of your floral budget into your ceremony florals or an elaborate escort card design this can really help to elevate the wedding and give it a more expensive feel without compromising on any area.

6. Have a solid plan B

Since we're photographers we wanted to make sure a plan B was in place. We rented a clear marquee. The reason we decided on this was because we wanted to make sure light would come through if we had to move the ceremony under the tent due to rain. After the fact we wish we included drapery. It would have been great to have sheer white drapes hanging from the ceiling (which would have diffused the light even more) and on the sides to hide the metal polls. With that said the tent still looked great without the drapes. One draw back with these tents is that they get hot. Our florist had to bring the flowers back inside, so drapes potentially would have blocked the sun better making it cooler.

7. Hiring a designer and coordinator

Since we're photographers we didn't think we'd need a planner or coordinator. We now know we were wrong. A designer would have saved us a lot time and stress with nailing down our vision and a coordinator would have been great to help us on the day of and with set-up. My sister realized instead of spending $5000 on food/catering (we had 50 guests) we could have got a food truck and would have had the money for a planner.

8. Cake

For a more elaborate cake and photo have your baker create a fake cake with only 1 tier thats real and have the caterer feed guests cake that's already been cut and more affordable.

9. Guest tables

We had shown our rental company the size of table we wanted through a picture. When the ables arrived we realized they were too wide making the tables look more bare than they actually were. Looking back it would have been great to measure the width or visited the rental company to see the size in person. If we had done this we would have selected the tables that weren't as wide so the florals and the candles filled up the table more and so guests were closer together providing a more intimate feel. It would have also given us more room in the tent to add a sweetheart table or lounge. We brought in Remi & Gold from the USA (don't know what we would have done without her), Boarding School Collective and La Tavola Linens. We had a hard time sourcing the velvet linens in Australia at a reasonable price and my husband was able to fly over with them in his suitcase. He couldn't fit anything else in his suitcase so we had to purchase a suite for him the day of the wedding.

A few items we sourced on our own and saved money on were the napkins which we purchased from Kmart for $1 each https://www. Kmart. Com. Au/ and the plates which we sourced for $2 each from https://www. Spotlightstores. Com/ . We loved how both of these turned out and we sold them after the wedding.

Credit needs to be given to the groom who redid the backyard with the help of one of his groomsman. He built retaining walls, added concrete, laid new turf and more. During the speeches the Bride Suzie gifted her groom Perry with a certificate of real manhood. This was especially significant and funny because prior to redoing the backyard the groom couldn't even change a light bulb.