This wedding was a very special one for us, Mikaela is one of our favourite most loved photographers in the Byron Bay and Lennox Head region. She’s captured some beautiful weddings for us this past year that will be hitting the blog in the New Year.

They chose Lennox Head as the location for their entire wedding event, with Boulder Beach Headland for the ceremony and Lennox Hotel as the reception space. They chose Lennox Head because this is where they envision making memories as a family in the future.

They really lucked out with the weather too, but they were smart and chose their wedding date to be right in the middle of winter. This is smart for three reasons; a) The endless sunny days that we get during those cooler months; b) They knew, because July is the slowest month for weddings they knew their favourite vendors would be available so they’d be spoilt for choice; and, c) The cooler days, the guys can wear heavy suits and the girls long gowns, and their guests weren’t sweating in the heat, nor was the bride’s makeup sweating off before the portrait session.

They told us “It was actually hard to narrow down a list of vendors, as we are spoilt for choice for the best wedding vendors in the Northern Rivers. We knew we wanted to keep it all local though. We LOVED working with all our vendors, especially Vic as she is a close friend in the industry and made the whole process seamless. We loved working with Kellie Bates, Ballina Blossoms and Sean Reefman too, they were very attentive and did an amazing job on the day. We can’t fault any of the vendors we worked with, they are all excellent.”

For their style they wanted something elegant, timeless and minimal, and Mikaela knew she wanted Tom in a tuxedo, which always looks so handsome in a beach setting.

When we asked them what their favourite part of their day was they said: “The ceremony, we felt like time stood still for a little bit and our attention was on each other in that moment.”

Victoria, from Love for Life Celebrant worked closely with Mikaela and Tom to ensure their story was fun, upbeat and a little bit of a laugh. Here’s what she had to say about the process… 

“It’s always such an honour to be asked to be anyone’s celebrant but particularly a colleague in the industry. When Maz contacted me to ask if I would be their celebrant, I knew it would be a great wedding. We met a couple of times to ensure the vibe they wanted was perfect. It was a wonderful stress free day. I always tell my couple’s to make sure they check in with each other during the precious moments. This helps to ground themselves so they don’t get carried away in the excitement and nerves – and I could tell that’s exactly what they were both doing as they didn’t even notice when one grumpy local walked right through the middle of the ceremony, to the disgust of many of the guests, but when you have an outdoor wedding you need to be prepared for all kinds of unexpected intruders; sea gulls, bush turkeys, and grumpy locals – we just paused for a moment and then carried on.”

Mikaela and Tom’s Cute Meet 

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon in early April 2015, when Tom and Mikaela found themselves playing social soccer against each other. Tom’s team absolutely destroyed Mikaela’s. 

As they politely shook hands at the end of the game, Mikaela remembers thinking ‘Ooooooo he’s bit of a babe!’

And Tom, thought ‘Oh that’s the girl who kept running away from the ball, up close she’s pretty cute!’

A little while later, they were both swiping mainly left on Tinder. Tom was convinced that every girl he was being matched with was a bot, so many bots trying to scam him out of his love, and he thought that’s it, I’m deleting this useless app once for all. 

When suddenly, Bing! Mikaela’s beautiful face filled his screen, Tom thought ‘hmmmmm she looks familiar, maybe this one isn’t a bot?’. So he took one last chance at love and swiped right. 

Now Tom wasn’t messing around he wanted to know exactly what he was dealing with up front so there were no generic who am I type of opening lines from him, oh no, his was clear and concise. 

He asked Mikaela: “Would you rather fight a duck the size of a horse, or 100 duck sized horses?” to which Mikaela didn’t even have to think about her response, and she promptly answered “Umm… the big duck?”.

And right there and then the stars aligned and their future was set.

On their first date over coffee they both played it real cool. They insisted, they were not looking for anything serious. 

But who were they kidding, it didn’t take them long to fall into that fuzzy new lovers phase of spending every second day together and not keeping their hands off of each other when they did.

The team who brought this gorgeous wedding together:

Sean Reefman Photography

Lennox Hotel

Kellie Bates Hair and Makeup

Love for Life Celebrant

Arbour of Love

Byron Bay Boutique Cakes

Paris in the Strand

Brunos Suits

Ballina Blossoms

Statik Entertainment

Luv Bridal