(Rather than reading, you can also listen by clicking on the mp3 file above.)

Andrea and Ivan were engaged for three years, and finally decided to tie the knot in Fiji. They wanted a very small reception; six guests only, her best friend and two other families. Their desire was mainly to be with their young children Juliet and Samuel, only one and three years of age. As a wedding and family photographer it was a delightful day to document. Plenty of candid and spontaneous moments. It was a day filled with energy and with so much joy and laughter.

Plantation Island Resort seemed to be the perfect venue. Below is a gathering of a few more interesting details and information.

Anais: Hello Ivan and Andrea, thank you very much and Bonjour! So, first of all, you had your wedding at Plantation Island in Fiji, and I would love you to answer a few questions…

Lets start with how you met.

Bride: Through a friend.

Groom: That’s right. One of my flat mates was Andrea’s best friend and they travelled together. Yeah and then slowly Andrea moved in and my flat mate moved out.

Andrea: I just gave him the wrong phone number, for the record.

Anais: Ohh. That was cheeky. That was very cheeky!

Ivan: Yeah. And now look what happened.

Anais: Can you tell me why you chose Plantation Island for your venue? 

Andrea:

We chose Plantation because we were originally coming with our two groups of friends for a big family holiday.

We’ve been going for three years, and thought, we always wanted a beach wedding so where better?

Anais: Who was your hair dresser and how did you choose your hair dresser?

Ivan: I found out Silver Strand through one of the websites on the internet.

Anais: And the make up as well?

Andrea: And the make up, hair and make up for both of us

Anais : What can you say about your experience with Silver Strand?

Andrea: Oh, he was wonderful. He did exactly as we asked, and he was very patient. He was waiting for a long time. The fees were extremely reasonable.

Anais: Ok great. Did you send him any photographs or an example? How did that work?

Andrea: No, Joe (Andrea’s bridesmaid) and I just decided on the day.

Anais: Ok great. Where did you buy your dress and why?

Andrea: Originally I wasn’t going to wear a wedding dress at all. I went wedding dress shopping with a friend upon her insistence.

Ivan: You can’t get married without a dress!

Andrea: I was just going to wear a shorts over a bikini or something. Then I realised that one of the dress shops in Australia has more options.

It’s a bridesmaid’s shop, but it was more just colours.

I didn’t want a traditional bride’s dress and I thought that it was pretty, quite beautiful; so it worked.

Anais: What’s the name of the shop?

Andrea: Review. They’ve got franchises throughout Australia.

Anais: So there’s one in Brisbane, right?

Andrea: Yes.

Anais. Great. What about you Ivan? Where did you buy your…

Ivan: My dress?!

I went to Myers for mine and funny enough I picked it straight up.

Anais: Where’s that Myers?

Ivan: In Brisbane. It’s a department shop.

Anais: For your children, how did you choose their outfits?

Andrea: I went to Myers for our « mini me ». Luckily my sister sent over the trousers for Samuel. I’ve been sort out marching belts and such.

Ivan and Samuel were matching and everyone were mentioning it was really cute.

Ivan: Yeah. We tried.

Anais: Good job! What about your wedding rings?

Ivan: We got them about ten years ago.

Andrea: He did. He bought my wedding ring at the same time with the engagement ring

Ivan: Yeah, probably about five years ago. Anyway, about five years ago I think we got the rings

Andrea: But not your ring

Ivan: No

Andrea: Your ring was…

Ivan: Recent. Peter Beck.

Andrea. Peter Beck designs…You fell in love with it… We thought we weren’t going to get it in time.

Ivan: That’s right.

Andrea: But we found a jeweller who could pull strings.

Anais: Cool. Where’s your ring from?

Andrea: Oh, this is Michael Hill and your’s is Peter Beck from Richardsons.

Anais: Can you tell me about your emotion throughout the day?

Ivan: Excitement. It’s pretty cool.

Andrea: Very excited. I couldn’t believe it. It’s finally happening. Obviously I was very overwhelmed by the whole experience of being with friends and best friends from the UK so yeah it was very very happy because the children were a huge part of it.

Anais: What did you feel like after the ceremony? Was everything  different? Perhaps less pressure?

Ivan: No. We’ve been « married » for a long time. There’s no difference, I think.

Andrea: It was nice. And I get « I love you »  everyday now because that was part of the ceremony and I think I can count on one hand how many times he said it since we met.

(Laughter)

Anais: What about your experience with the photography?

Andrea: Well, you know. Anais, you’ve been  absolutely wonderful. You were there to capture absolutely wonderful moments, and nothing was staged, which is what we like.

Ivan: Yeah, it was natural.

Andrea: We wanted the moments to be captured, to capture people’s personalities in the actual event, and how people were enjoying it, rather than “Please line up and smile”.

Anais: What about the celebrant? What was her name?

Andrea: Miri.

Anais: Is she from Plantation Island?

Andrea: She is. I arranged everything with her and we met at the day of the wedding, she is really lovely. 

Ivan: When I asked her originally to get married and I said August, she said “August next year?”  So we managed to do everything pretty quickly.

Anais: You met her on the day of the wedding? 

Ivan: A day before.

Anais: What about the warriors, the Fijian warriors. Was that part of the package?

Andrea: It was. Although I  didn’t plan everything, He did ask if I wanted to be carried in, or escorted in by the warriors. The whole carrying in wasn’t my thing, I thought we ran out of warriors but I’m glad we had them because…

Ivan: It’s cool.

Anais. It’s was a nice bonus. Everything looked great. And the flowers? Was that part of  Plantation’s package?

Andrea: Plantation Island, they arranged everything. Did you get to choose which flowers?

Ivan: No. I arranged it, but it was part of the package. We just told them we needed a bouquet and a couple of boutonnieres. 

Anais : They were beautiful local white frangipanis. And the catering?

Ivan: It changed at the last minute. We’re supposed to have mocktails and cocktails…

Andrea: We just went for canapés and we were going to have it back at the bar. We were going to have cocktails for our guests. They have to have them at the bar, so we couldn’t have everything where the ceremony takes place. We didn’t want to lose the momentum and excitement at such a stunning location.

Anais: So you chose to just have juice, bubbles and wine with the canapés?

Andrea: Yes. 

Anais:Do you have anything to share?

Ivan: What did you think of the wedding?

Anais: What did I think?

Ivan: Yes

Anais: Well I think that was one of the funniest ones I’ve been to in terms of entertainment. I just loved how you went for swim in the ocean after the ceremony : you just went for it! It was such a funny moment.

Anais: It was definitely not the most traditional wedding. I liked it. It was very bubbly and…

Andrea: Spontaneous at times?

Anais: Yes. Anything to add?

Andrea: Thank you Anais. Thank you very much. You’ve been wonderful. Everything worked out perfectly.

Anais: Thank you.

Useful links :

Plantation Island Resort

Silver Strand hair and make up in Fiji

Review wedding dress shop

Myers Brisbane department store

Peter Beck rings

Michael Hill rings

Contact me to know more about wedding packages.

Scroll down to look at the photographs (by me!) :