You could truly say that love is in the air when it comes to the incredibly gorgeous couple. The couple both work in the aviation industry. Nick is a pilot while Emily is a flight attendant. You would have assumed they met through their line of work, but actually they met through Instagram!
On their first year anniversary, Nick surprised Emily with her favourite flowers and told her to pack her bag since they are not going to stay at home tonight. He took her to brunch at the café where he first asked her to be his girlfriend and then they checked in at the Crown Towers. Once they had unpacked, Nick told Emily to dress up and when they went downstairs, she found a horse and carriage awaiting, ready to take them around the city with champagne. They then went to the Royal Botanic Garden and by the lake Nick got down on one knee and proposed. He had organised Nora Mancini to capture the moment so they took photos afterwards and went back to a beautiful seafood restaurant to celebrate. When they returned to their room, the bed had a huge love heart and the word FIANCÉ written in rose petals. There was champagne, chocolates and fruit.
This couple is so adorable and romantic, their whole love story is like a real-life fairytale. Their wedding was Vogue-inspired at the breathtakingly beautiful Florence venue, Belmond Villa San Michele.
Wedding Date: 04/10/2019
How many guests? 30
How did you and your partner meet?
You would think, with both of us working in aviation that we would’ve met on board.. but no, we met on Instagram!
How did he propose?
It was around our 1 year anniversary and Nick surprised me in the morning with my favourite flowers. He told me to pack a bag as we weren’t staying at home. He then surprised me by taking me to brunch at the cafe he first asked me to be his girlfriend at. We started driving towards the city and turned in to Crown Casino. He had organised a night at Crown Towers in Melbourne CBD. We checked into the hotel and went for a walk around the hotel. He said we had to be ready by 6pm and I had to dress nicely. We walked downstairs and there was a horse and carriage waiting outside the hotel entrance!
He had organised an hour horse and carriage ride around the city with champagne. The horse and carriage dropped us off at the Royal Botanical gardens and he told me the restaurant was inside the gardens. We started walking through the gardens and got to a secluded spot where we sat on a park bench. He said we were early for our reservations so we should sit for a while and wait. We waited for about 5-10 minutes and then he asked if i wanted to go look at the lake in front of us. I initially said “Not really, it smells!” He insisted and so we went to look at the lake and he started saying sweet things and then got down on one knee and asked me if i would marry him!! He had organised a professional photographer to capture the moment and we got some photos afterwards.
Turns out we weren’t having dinner in the Royal Botanical Gardens so we went back to Crown and went to dinner at a beautiful seafood restaurant. After dinner he said “I have one more surprise for you” we went up to the room and as soon as I opened the door there were red rose petals from the door to the bed. The bed had a huge love heart and the word FIANCÉ written in rose petals. There was champagne, chocolates and fruit as well! The man sure is romantic!! Our proposal is on Youtube if you want to see the real life proposal!
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDfeRNu5UGM)
Length of Engagement? 9 months
What do you love most about your partner?
Emily: I fell in love with how genuine Nick is, he is the definition of a gentleman. I love how selfless he is and how he always puts other people before himself. He has a pure, kind, honest heart and from our first date i knew he was someone i had never come across before. He constantly surprised me with how thoughtful he was. I would say one thing in a passing conversation and he would remember it and organise something i had said without even thinking about it.
Nick: Em has many many qualities that I have fallen in love with but some of the ones that I love the most are her selflessness, her honesty, her caring nature and her sensitivity in comforting others when they are down and showing empathy, wanting to go above and beyond to make me feel special, her humour, her affection and how she makes me feel like I am the only one she sees in any room we walk in to. I love how she supports and reminds me to keep going with tasks/projects even when I don’t feel like it, her love for her family and being close with her family and her undevoted loyalty to me.
How would you describe your wedding in one or two words?
Unforgettable and Romantic
Tell us about your wedding invitations – how did you choose them (explain how it may have reflected your personalities, special design features you were looking for, matching wedding theme etc.) and what do you love most about it?
We found our wedding invitations (Adorn Invitations) through Instagram and loved all of their designs. What we loved most about Adorn Invitations is that you can completely customise your invitations to make it suit your unique style and theme for your wedding. We weren’t 100% sure on how we would like our invites to be done so we set up a meeting at the Adorn Invitations store to talk through and see some of the samples they had. This gave us a greater vision in creating the invites we wanted for the big day. We were able to see how our invites would come to life after viewing their samples in the store. We weren’t sure which colour font to use for our clear invites so we were able to take home two sample invites with different coloured font which allowed us time to decide which colours we wanted to use. We found styles online that we liked the look of and were able to send these to Adorn Invitations designer for them to mock up something similar to what we had seen. They were able to completely customise everything from the font, colour and even floral design we had on our invites. The envelopes and stickers are also completely customised. We loved that the names and address’ were printed onto the envelopes so this looked very elegant and saved time in posting the invites out (especially if you have a lot of guests) We loved that our invites were unique and one of a kind!
Tell us about your wedding gown and how you chose it:
My wedding gown was purchased from Raffaele Ciuca in Armadale. I envisioned myself wearing something quite fitted and classical (something Audrey Hepburn like!) However, I chose a dress completely opposite to what I thought I wanted. As soon as i tried the dress on my mum, dad, sister and mother in law cried.. so i knew that was the one! I loved the detail and elegant sleeves of the dress. My mum actually said to me “Emily, this is the dress! Nick thinks of you as his Princess and thats exactly what you look like” I think she was right, I absolutely felt like a princess on the day!
What sort of style did you envision for your wedding day?
We wanted our wedding day to be ROMANTIC! Our style for the big day was quite formal, intimate and elegant. We got a lot of inspiration and ideas from Pinterest, Vogue Brides magazines and Instagram. Emily’s mum was a huge help throughout the wedding and was constantly helping with decor ideas and styling for the big day.
How did you come to choose the location and venue?
My mum actually found the venue on Instagram and sent it to both Nick and I. We absolutely loved the look of the venue, but kept looking in Australia as we didn’t think a destination wedding would be something we would be able to plan in a short amount of time! Whilst we kept looking in Australia, nothing compared to the venue in Florence. We knew that after countless venue searching that we had to go with Florence! Nick and I had never been to Europe, let alone Florence so it was a big deal for us to choose a country and venue we had never seen! We were definitely not disappointed, both Florence itself and the venue was even better than photos, it was everything we expected and more! With both of us working in aviation it also seemed fitting that we would choose somewhere that involved traveling! We loved the look of the venue and Florence is such a magical and romantic city so it fit really well with what we were wanting for our wedding day.
Can you describe what type of ceremony you had and how you were able to personalise it? (i.e. any readings, vows, symbolic gestures, wedding party, how you entered the wedding ceremony, or any other special touches).
We had a symbolic ceremony, as it was not legally recognised in Australia we had to get legally married in Australia before we left for our wedding. Our bridal party was made up of my three sisters and best friend, Nick’s groomsmen were one of his best friends, my brother and his brother in law. We liked the idea of being able to personalise the bridal party with family and close friends! Our celebrant was amazing, she was very informative and helpful, she let us take full control of how we wanted the ceremony to run. We wrote our own vows and had two of the bridesmaids say a poem each. We were also able to personalise the ceremony by designing the vow books ourselves. We wanted to incorporate both of our families in the wedding ceremony so we had the lighting of a unity candle. This is typically where the mother of the bride and mother of the groom light a candle each and then the bride and groom light a candle together off the two candles. This is meant to symbolises the joining of both families as one. We had both the mother & father of the bride and mother & father of the groom light one candle each as we wanted to involve as many of our family as we could. Nick entered the ceremony along with his groomsmen. We then had two flower girls walk down the aisle followed by the bridesmaids. Emily entered the ceremony walking down the aisle with her dad.
Describe the cake (including the flavours) and cake topper:
Given that we got married in Italy, we had to have some lemon flavours and themes! Our cake was lemon curd and was dressed with flowers from our florist.
What flowers did you use in the bouquet and at the venue?
Our theme was quite formal and elegant so we chose some natural greenery with white flowers. We sent photos of flowers and arrangements to our florist and left it up to her on which flowers would be in season in Italy and which would go best with the arrangement and theme we had. We had white roses and hydrangeas placed into an arch for our ceremony. We also had hydrangeas placed on the aisle seats and white roses placed along the aisle and for guests to throw at the conclusion of the ceremony. For the dinner reception we had a long green and white wreath placed in the centre of the table with natural greenery, white roses and hydrangeas.
How did you choose your table décor?
We had one long table for the reception so wanted a nice long wreath in the centre of the tables. We also wanted to add some height and dimension so we added some candelabras placed along the table. This was a really nice touch as it added some more romance and intimacy to the dinner! A lot of the inspiration for the table decor came from Pinterest!
What was the menu for the reception?
We had a four course menu for the reception.
First Course: Baked Eggplant layer with Fiorentino tomato sauce, creamed buffalo mozzarella cheese and basil.
Second Course: Homemade tortelli 24 months aged parmesan cheese and fresh tomato sauce.
Third Course: Steamed sea bass lemon-scented Seabass, salty zabaglione, capers, lightly scarce zucchini (Option 1) Roasted duck breast, fresh fig & pepper sauce, stew Tuscan lentils, confit carrots (Option 2)
Fourth Course: Tart with custard cream and berries.
Followed with friandises and coffee
Wines: Vernaccia Panizzi, Chianti Peppoli
What were your favourite moments from the day?
Nick: Seeing Emily walk down the aisle.
Emily: When i said “I Do” the man of my dreams.
Name your wedding soundtrack (aisle entrance & exit, reception entry, first dance songs): Brides Entrance: A Thousand Years – Christina Perri
Exit: Wedding March – Mendelssohn’s
Reception Entry: Introduced by the MC over speaker
First Dance Song: Why I Love You – Major
Any DIY décor elements?
We designed our own vow books on Photoshop!
Any sentimental personal touches? We had our grandparents recognised during the ceremony as they weren’t able to fly over or had passed away. Nick had the inside of his wedding suit embroidered with our wedding date.
What was the biggest splurge of the day?
The fireworks.. they were worth every cent though!
How did you save on costs?
We used frequent flyer points to fly over to Italy and a lot of the families stayed in the same accomodation.
In hindsight, anything you would have done differently?
Not that we can think of, we both had the best day ever
Where did you go on honeymoon?
Our honeymoon was in Sorrento and down the Amalfi Coast.
Any tips that you can give to future brides?
I would recommend if you are having a destination wedding to make sure you have a hair & makeup trial prior to the wedding day. This will elevate any stress on the day and you can be as relaxed and comfortable during the preparations. For the dress shopping i would recommend going in with an open mind and be open to trying on all different styles so you can get a feel for a variety of different styles, rather than ruling out styles you may not consider trying on.
If you could sum up your wedding in one sentence, how would you describe it?
By far the most magical and special day of our lives, in the most romantic city and a day that we will cherish forever.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Your wedding day is YOUR day. This is the one time in your life where you can be selfish and put your wants and dreams ahead of pleasing others. Do what makes you and your partner happy and you will have the most magical and unforgettable day of your lives.
Wedding Invitations: Adorn Invitations
Dress: Raffaele Ciuca
Veil: Raffaele Ciuca
Makeup: Ruslana Regi/ Liza Samokhina
Hair: Ruslana Regi/ Liza Samokhina
Shoes: Jimmy Choo
Bridesmaid Earrings: Zara, Bride bracelet: Aristides Fine Jewels
Bridesmaids Dresses: Elle Zeitoune
Groom’s Suit: Tailors Mark
Groom’s Shoes: Julius Marlow
Groomsmen Suit: Tailors Mark
Catering: Belmond Villa San Michele
Flowers: FunkyBird Firenze
Photographer: Nora Mancini
Videographer: Anthony Venitis @bvaerial
Venue: Belmond Villa San Michele
Entertainment: DJ: Marco Garberoglio, String Quartet: Gli Archimisti String Ensemble
Celebrant: Blessings From Italy (Diane Rossi)
Wedding Favours: Sketch & Etch Creative (Luggage Tags, Guest Book & Neon Sign) Lemon Drop Lollies (local store in Florence)
Any Other Vendors: Fireworks: Allevi Fireworks, Rings: Janai Jewellery
The Details
