It’s a requirement by law to give one month’s Notice of Intended Marriage to your celebrant before you can legally tie the knot here in Australia, but after a quick chat with one of our celebrants, a lovely surprise proposal, and a couple of calls to the relevant authorised parties – the required legal documents were collated and they applied for a shortening of time to the Ballina local court house.

Not everyone can just turn up at the court house and apply for a shortening of time, but because these two love birds had a relationship spanning over 11 years, have created 3 beautiful children, and normally live on the opposite side of the world from their immediate family. The courthouse granted the application and the date was set for 12 days time, just before their family headed back home!

As everybody knows, 12 days is not a lot of time to organise a wedding, there’s so much planning required, from the venue hire, the catering, the make-up artist, hair stylist, flowers, not to mention where the bride will find her perfect dress! But once Ben and Liv decided they wanted a simple beach ceremony just across the road from their home, and chose the right team to pull it together, everything fell into place like a dream.

Starting with Victoria from Love for Life Celebrant who got to work straight away weaving their love story throughout the ceremony, and Renata from Boho Bay Designs  who worked with Liv and Ben to design an Australiana themed arbour.  Liv found her dream dress at the Spell boutique in Byron Bay. While Ben found his dapper suit at Wallace and Co. in Ballina.

Kaye Adam was hired to make-up the bride, highlighting Olivia’s natural beauty, Liv’s friends gifted her a flower crown from Stevie’s Stall and Co, and the bouquet was pulled together from the bride’s own collection of dried flowers she’d been collecting for many years.

The hardest part was finding the best photographer to capture this wonderful life event, as Ben is a highly regarded photographer in the Northern Rivers region, he wanted someone who would capture their fun and relaxed ceremony in the best possible light. Sanne from SW Photography was willing to take on the task, and as you can see she did a pretty amazing job!

The only thing we couldn’t control was the strong northerly wind that picked up stronger and stronger as the day progressed, so just 20 minutes from when the bride was due to arrive, the arbour, signing table and chairs, were moved to a less windy spot just 100 metres up the beach without any problem.

This winter beach wedding was wonderful, with laughter, love, tears and cheers. Ben and Liv had their three children, Elsie, Grace and Reuben, and their much loved family and friends as witness. They partied on into the night with platters prepared by their family, and everyone exclaimed just how perfect everything was.

If you’d like a wedding like Ben and Liv’s then get in touch we have Micro Wedding packages starting from $3000.