Belinda & Joel’s wedding is exciting to me for a number of reasons. Not only was it sent over by one of my favourite dress designers, Johanna Johnson (Belinda’s dress and headband were by the designer) but the wedding was shot by photographer Marcus Bell, who has just been included in the top 10 photographers in the world by American Photo Magazine (alongside a load of other Rock n Roll Bride favourites including Jonas Peterson, The Image is Found and Our Labor of Love.) So needless to say, this wedding is a crash! bang! smack-you-between-the-eyes-with-awesomeness of a wedding. “Once I found my beautiful Johanna Johnson dress the inspiration came from there!” the bride told me. “I didn’t want to be a traditional bride with the big dress and veil or have my bridesmaids in all the same dress, I wanted the wedding to be unique and individual – to be me.”
The couple were married at The Plantation in Queensland. The planning wasn’t always plain sailing, but in the end the wedding went ahead without a hitch (despite a lot of rain…which I actually think looks pretty darn awesome in the photos!) “We live in Sydney and decided that because we both love Noosa so much that we should get married in Queensland,” the bride continued. “We booked The Plantation in Cooroy a year before the date and were very happy. A couple of months before our wedding we were advised by the plantation that our wedding may have some problems as neighbours surrounding the area were complaining about noise issues.”
“Three weeks before the wedding we were told that we should look for an alternate location for our wedding. Joel and I were devasted to say the least. We had planned and booked everything for this wedding a year ago and already had 80 guests flying from around Australia. I am so proud of my husband as he was on to every newspaper and website he could find to tell our story so hopefully our wedding could go ahead. We were featured in a local paper in Qld telling our story.
“To cut a long story short we talked to the neighbours pleaded our case and asked them to consider how we felt, after the matter was taken to court between The Plantation and the neighbours. We were so blessed that only 3 weddings were allowed to proceed and ours was the first. I think that this experience made our relationship stronger and I couldn’t imagine what I would have done without Joel’s help he truly was amazing. On the 12th of March 2011 I married my best friend in front of all our closest family and friends, we had an amazing day!”
So beautiful!
Huge love + thanks to Sarah & Johanna of Johanna Johnson, Marcus Bell and of course the wonderful couple for working with me on this feature.
