The ‘Maritime Goth’ Themed Wedding of Jessica & Winston McCall

Diamond Eyes

September 29, 2014

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When wedding photographer Matt Miller emailed me to tell me he’d shot the wedding of Winston McCall, lead singer of Australian metalcore band Parkway Drive, and asking if I’d like to feature it, I nearly fell off my chair. “Er… stupid question!” I replied, “OF COURSE!” He married his high school sweetheart, Jessica, in beautiful Byron Bay on May 11th this year.

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“The inspiration for our wedding was the ocean and it’s mystique,” Jessica told me. “We are both surfers who are obsessed with it. However as hardcore kids and lovers of all things black, we are not the stereotypical ‘beachy’ types. So in order to appropriately reflect our identities, we decided to incorporate these dual aspects of our personalities into our wedding décor. We wanted to achieve a casual vibe that was infused with decadent elements.”

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“I’d describe our theme as ‘Maritime Goth’!”, she continued. “Think skulls, coral, shells, anchors, rope, succulents, moss and candles. Our friend and artist, Rosie Call, created our favours and bonbonnieres from rustic marble tiles that her father had hidden in his shed. What started out as a simple idea of Rosie hand painting guests names on them to be used as place cards, turned into a full blown artisan project. Each and every tile became an individual work of art, no names just ocean inspired imagery! Close to their completion, a group of my gal pals came together and we all helped Rosie with any finishing touches, then chose which guest should get which tile and tied their name tags to each tile with twine. The tiles then doubled as place cards and gifts. I still can’t believe I had guests making their own gifts but everyone loved it!”

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Jessica wore an Alexander McQueen gown with Jimmy Choo shoes. Their biggest expenses were the photography (they flew Matt over from America) and the food. “Our wedding was a once in a lifetime event and therefore working with quality photographers was worth every cent to capture the best day of our lives”, she said. “Everyone involved in our wedding gave us their time and energy so it was incredibly important to us that we would have the best quality mementos to share with them and treasure forever.”

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“As we are vegetarians who absolutely adore good food, it’s importance to our wedding was not to be underestimated. Guests still comment on how good the vegetarian menu was that the team at The Italian at The Pacific created specifically for us. We also had a cocktail service that included a ‘No-jito’ mocktail for Winston and the rest of our alcohol free guests.”

“Something else that I LOVED about the day was that we politely requested our wedding guests to refrain from sharing any photos of our day on social media. As a result we felt that everyone was present in the moment (a rarity these days), the photography was truly left in the hands of the paid professionals. Additionally, there were almost no photos that included any guest using their mobile device, instead the dance floor raged!”

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“When it comes to wedding planning it’s easy to be a control freak, as well as hard to delegate responsibility, or accept the generosity of others”, Jessica concluded. “However, when it came to our wedding I decided to say, ‘yes please’ and ‘thank you’ to all that was offered to us. Winston and I are very privileged in being surrounded by so many creative people, and as a result of allowing these talents to be gifted to us, every facet of the wedding surpassed our expectations! We had friends helping us out with our hen/ bachelor events, the décor, the transport, the music and the cake as well as many other things!”

“So my advice is: accept and be gracious of the generosity of your friends and family. It made the lead up to the wedding very relaxed and when I look through the photos I’m reminded of all the special humans in our lives who kindly donated their valuable time and energy in ensuring our wedding was the best day possible.”

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