TROPICAL VIBES || our bali wedding
These are the memories we have from our perfect day, captured by the incredible Jonny Scott. It was a little funny actually, our original photographer cancelled 2 weeks before the wedding (eeep minor freak out) & that exact day we had one of our closest friends wedding in NZ. Jonny was the photographer there and we got chatting and by fate and total star alignment he happened to be free on the weekend of our wedding. Next thing he's on a flight coming over to Bali & we're so stoked he could be apart of it. A total legend, so proffesional, hilarious, can dance & such an incredible photographer. You can check out his instagram page here.
We wed amidst bright tropical foliage and the sparkling sea, under the full moon and incorporated meaningful details to our day to create a memory that reflected our love story. We're so obsessed with how the day turned out & so excited to share the details with you. From our pre ceremony festivities & games, our incredible team who made the day perfect for us & our dancefloor that turned into a crazy rap battle & dance off.
By the end of the night, our party somehow ended up with all guests in the pool trading in bikinis for cocktail dresses. We'll never forget the beautiful people we got to celebrate with and the vibes they brought along... what a day!
We did something a little untraditional & different, a pre ceremony reveal. An intimate & special moment shared between the both of us before the ceremony where we got to see one another & chat, calm our nerves and just take it all in before our guests arrived. We loved this, it meant the entire bridal party could hang together before hand and share the excited feels, and it made us excited rather than nervous about sharing out vows in front of all our guests. This is something I would totally recommend if you feel you might cry your eyes out at the alter (hello...me!)... the emotion was still there, but I think we kept it together a little more compared to if we didnt have our reveal.
The property we got married on was a gorgeous 6 bedroom villa on Cemagi Beach, about 20 minutes north of Canggu. We always wanted to have a small and intimate wedding in a gorgeous jungle garden, and this was the perfect location. We searched for a venue for months online but we couldn't find the right place. Everything felt so done before... So one day we jumped on google earth, started down at Uluwatu and searched all the way up north on the map until we found this special little gem. It was brand new & just built. We got our major stalk on & found the details of the owner online, a family from Belgium who had built this incredible home as a holiday abode. We asked them if we could get married there - and we couldn't believe it when they said YES! We flew to Bali to check it out but we already knew without seeing it... it was the one.
We chose to get married on the full moon for a few different reasons. The full moon is at its most yang phase, most energetic and its when all things in life are most illuminated & make most sense. It’s the best time in the moon cycle to make decisions & take action on something that’s close to your heart. We picked the circular arbor to help represent that, it was gorgeous, decorated with pampas grass and lively green foliage.
After the reveal, the girls secretly hung upstairs in the master bedroom whilst the guests arrived, we could see them walking through in total awe of the property, but they couldn't see us.
Our two intentions for the day were for our guests to feel the love & have fun, and every decision we made about the day revolved around these two things. So we had games and activities throughout the day to have them feeling all the feels. First up was an egg and spoon race on the property, from one end to the other. The winner scored the role to officially announce us as Mr & Mrs. Thompson at the altar.
We then involved our guests in different fun games and activities like having them get entangled by our love story photo wall, the history of our bestfriend-to-lifelong-soulmate journey, they got to read about our stories together as friends traveling the world to then life as sweethearts. Then we asked them to write the rest of our story for us by helping us create a bucket list for us to complete during our lifetime, their favourite date night ideas & their best piece of advice.
Bali is our favorite destination & where we got engaged. We love the outdoors and adventure so our intention for the style and design was to feel like we were in a jungle, we wanted the outside … to be inside. Our stylists did an amazing job decorating the marquee with amazing hanging gardens, lights & candles.
Our wedding planner + team totally outdid themselves with the pampas grass spruced arbor. Add the clear-topped tent with a suspended frond chandelier, modern glass hurricanes and bistro lights strung across the dance floor and we have a heavenly scene to dream about forever.
We got married on March 3rd, a reasonably risky time of year for Bali seeing as its smack bang in the middle of the wet season. But, we scored big time. It didn't rain at all the week leading into the wedding day (thankyou rain Gods) and even the day was a perfect mix of a tropical heat with a cool sea breeze.
The mood was romantic & the vibes were so sweet. With gorgeous electric tropical jams playing in the background, a candle lit dinner & a beautiful pink and purple sunset. We just couldn't have asked for a more perfect dusk to set the scene.
Our DJ played a beautiful saxophone alongside the music... if you're wanting to create a mood - get yourself a saxaphone DJ! What a dude!
Our dinner was to die for, an insane variety of delicious paleo, vegetarian and vegan food - some of the best food I've had in Bali (which is a pretty big statement, seeing as Bali is known for some of the most incredible food & restaurants/cafes in the world). Matt surprised me with fireworks during out first dance which totally stunned me, I couldn't believe it & it just made our first dance as husband & wife so much more memorable.
After dessert, the dancefloor was on. Rap battles, dance off's and the worm in all its glory. I changed into a gorgeous Alice McCall number for some dancefloor action because there was no way I was moving much in that body glove (as much as I loved my wedding gown).
The night was young and the energy was high. I made a bet with our videographer Joey, I mentioned 10pm would be the first pool dive, he guessed 1030pm...
Joey won the bet...
A night we simply cant forget, so much love and so much fun. Thankyou to our beautiful guests for flying all that way to celebrate with us & of course our incredible team who made this dream a reality for us. Such a gorgeous wedding day that we just couldn't fault. If you're wanting to get married in Bali I highly recommend this incredible team. Jonny Scott travels the world to photograph & his work is incredible as you can see. We had our photos in no time & totally delivered above and beyond our expectations.
Thankyou again team - we are just so in love with the day you helped us create.
All our love,
C & M
xo
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Wedding Vendors:
Photography: Jonny Scott Photography
Videographer: Joseph Willis
Planning & Design: Hari Indah
Floral Design: Flora Botanica Designs
Dress: Made with Love Bridal
Makeup & Hair: The Bronzer
Food, Table Settings, Chairs & Tables: Dijon Café Bali
DJ: DJ Sammy Sax