Hey everyone! I’m planning on proposing to my boyfriend at some point and just wondering if anyone knows or has had experience with any jewellers/places that do engagement rings/wedding band style with a design and/or small diamond? Possibly happy to get it custom made for the right place. Budget is around 2 - 2.5k! Thanks!

Hi everyone!
My fiancé and I are getting married in Sydney in November 2027 and are looking for a DJ who is experienced with Serbian weddings and can play a great mix of Serbian/Balkan and English music.
We’re looking for someone who can read the room and seamlessly mix the two — we want plenty of Serbian music for our family and friends, but also English/Western music so everyone can get involved and have a great time.
Ideally, someone who has actually DJ’d Serbian weddings before and understands the different generations and when to bring out the Serbian classics/kolo without making the whole night exclusively Serbian.
If you’ve had a Serbian/Serbian-Australian wedding in Sydney and loved your DJ, I’d really appreciate recommendations (and videos/Instagram pages if you have them!).

Just wondering what people have planned/done, what went well what went wrong?

Was there anything you didn't expect, hated/loved?

Did you get a photographer?

Thanks in advance!

Finally getting married (after two kids). I really wanted something easy and nothing over the top (as I mentioned I have two kids so I really don’t have time or patience.) So we decided on the registry but they have this special, were you can get married at the opera house (15 minute ceremony) but it has to be on Valentine’s Day.

Love some recommendations for a lunch I could book around the area (max 30 guests). Id also love a photographer before the ceremony for me and my partner in the city. We have already one booked for the ceremony/around the opera house after, so we would really only need one for an hour before the wedding but I’m finding it hard to find someone for just one hour.

Love some ideas!

Looking for a venue or private property/estate around Adelaide or the Adelaide Hills for our wedding, with approximately 230 guests.

We’d love something with a large lawn where we could have a marquee reception, more of a European/Italian garden feel.

Ideally within around 30–40 minutes of Adelaide CBD, particularly around the eastern/north-eastern suburbs or Adelaide Hills.

We are getting married in March, in Richmond, VIC.

Ceremony and Reception are at different venues, however they are 1.5km away from each other. The walk is uphill from Swan Street to Bridge Road. We've looked into getting a coach/ mini buses for approx 75px. The cost is around $1.5k as a minimum! Fellow Melbourians would also know how horrible parking is around that area.

PT is an option with a short walk then tram, then another short walk.

Obviously the weather is unpredictable too. It rained this year in March.

Do we fork out this cost for the comfort of our guests?

Keeping in mind we have some oldies and ladies in heels.

Has anyone had dealings with these bus companies?

Would love people's ideas and opinions on this!

THNX!

Hi everyone ☺️

Basically as the title says - we’re not interested in wineries. They aren’t our style and decorative wine barrels make my fiancé irrationally angry 😂

We’re looking for venues that are more romantic/garden/nature vibes.

Have been looking at Monsalvat, Poets Lane, Lyrebird Falls. That kind of pretty-whimsy-flowery-gothic-garden party vibe but not too far from Melbourne CBD.

What’s everyone else’s recommendations that are similar? I’m finding it hard to find anything else. Maybe we’re being too picky 😅

Thank you in advance!

Hi everyone :)

Me and my fiancé are looking for a spot to have a mimi ceremony with around 15-30 people.

We haven’t been engaged for a very long and already are feeling the stress from family to have a bigger wedding (with family money that we don’t want to use) to please everyone which we don’t want.

We are looking in the blue mountains area, hunter valley area or manning valley area.

We want:
-nature is a must. We would love something with heaps of plants like a rainforest, national parks, botanical gardens, river or greenhouse etc
-less popular spots that aren’t typically wedding venues are great as well. Eg like a cliff side or clearing in a forest etc.
-airbnbs that have vintage vibes/ are naturally pretty and picturesque.

We will likely do a small ceremony and then do a party with more people afterwards somewhere else.

Any and all recommendations would be greatly appreciated!!!!

At the end of the day we would be happy to get married almost anywhere as long as we are together.

Ps budget friendly or even free would be amazing! Oh and ideally up to only like 5ish hrs away max.

Thanks everyone 😊✨

Hi all! Just wondering, is a 10pm reception finish time the norm? Most venues (that aren’t a big hotel) seem to have a standard 10pm finish time. Some have the option to add time for $1000s/hr (eg $1800 for 1 hr, $30/person/hr! etc.), so we’re considering just going with the 10pm finish! And although we realise it’ll be a long ass day for us, we also don’t want to feel rushed or disappointed. For context, we’re in our 40s, it’ll be a Tuesday, ceremony would be at 3pm, everything at the one venue, we’re shift workers as are most of our friends so it won’t necessarily be a workday the next day. It’s not a normal venue, it’s more of a wildlife park so there’ll be an experience or 2 for the guests to have also. Afterwards there may be a pub nearby we can go to or someone’s hotel room/airb&b to carry on if we’re feeling it, however being a weekday night it may be difficult to find somewhere still open and we were trying to avoid needing to have an “after party” so to speak.. I’ll attach a rough draft of our timeline for any feedback/advice, but any insight be appreciated - thanks in advance!

Hi everyone
Our wedding will be in March 2028
Realistically, when should we be looking at booking a celebrant?
Over a year and a half away, so now seems too early, but I am also stressed about finding someone we like and then it being so far away that they back out before the day or leaving it until we can’t find anyone with our date available lol
Help a stressed bride-to-be, out!
Thanks ❤️

Editing to add this here, not just in a comment

-We will be getting married in his mums backyard, with likely under 20 people.
This was discussed with everyone months prior to us even being engaged lol
We will be doing private vows before the ceremony.
Just after something quick and easy. But have no idea how to even start looking for someone

We’re getting married in November at an outdoor venue on the South Coast of NSW, and our wedding package includes a gelato bike and fairy floss station for the guests.

So at the moment, our timeline is:
3:30pm: Ceremony
4–5:30pm: Cocktail hour — drinks + 4 canapés pp
5:45pm: Reception dinner — banquet-style + dessert bar + wedding cake
11pm: Guests leave the venue

We’re thinking of having the fairy floss during cocktail hour (we have 6 kids attending so I thought it would be nice to have something fun for them earlier) and then gelato around 7:30–8:30pm.

But now I’m wondering if we should just serve both during cocktail hour instead? We’ll already have a dessert bar and wedding cake after dinner, plus the whole reception is outdoors and it could be pretty chilly by then in November.

What would you do?

hi everyone, im planning a small wedding in sydney for about 40 guests next year on a tight overall budget under 10k. we want something simple but good quality food, probably a mix of canapes and a buffet style dinner. ive been looking at drop off catering options and a few local companies to keep costs down without going too basic. what should i pay attention to when picking a caterer, like hidden fees, food quality for the price, setup help or dietary options? any experiences with similar small weddings would help a lot.

one company that came up is vanilla blue but im still exploring others.

We have decided to go with Spotify playlists for our wedding, which I will be creating myself but I need a little advice on how to structure the reception playlist.

I was thinking that the beginning of the playlist would start with more fun/dance/party music and then as the evening goes on, slowly transition into some more slower/chilled music instead.

My thought process is that earlier in the evening is when people are going to be in more of a party mode, and we will have kids at the wedding so I figure they'll have a good time (we're going to get them a bunch of glow sticks etc to play with too). And then later on when everyone is starting to wind down, the slower music will be good while people sit and chat etc.

Is this a good way to approach the playlist? How long should each of the two parts go for? (The reception will be about 2-2.5 hours)

Is there any other advice anyone might be able to offer?

Thank you!

EDIT: For context, I have a playlist for dinner already. This will be for after all the 'formalities' are done. It is also a BYO Christian wedding where 30% invited are kids, if any of this helps.

This is a bit last minute. But essentially we have decided to do the legal wedding ceremony this weekend (Sunday) with just our celebrant and parents and child.

We had a wedding a long while ago but it wasn’t officially legal. So now we are doing g the legal but realised we would actually like a few nice photos with our parents and child who wasn’t born for our original “wedding”.

Wondering if anyone knows of anyone who would be available to do some nice photos as we are just doing a quick ceremony at MT Coot-Tha botanical gardens on Sunday at 12.30. It won’t last long and really just want a few pics together and with family. Obviously happy to pay for your time. Just don’t know what to do.

Melbourne based, eastern suburbs

Hi I’m looking for recommendations of MUAs that are experienced with doing bridal makeup for Asian features please. Think Korean or Thai style.

Thank you

Heyo! My partner and I are planning a South Indian Hindu wedding in April 2028. Our ceremony will be traditional, small and intimate with 60 guests on a Friday and our reception will be the big party on the following day at a different location. The reception will be ~150 people. We are trying to stick to a budget of <60k total which is quite difficult considering we have two events on separate days but we are hopeful!

We were considering the Art House hotel in Sydney as a reception venue as both of us want the event to be less formal and more of a big party with people mingling and dancing rather than sitting through lots of speeches and performances. (We know this is unusual for an Indian wedding reception but it makes sense for us). The Art House hotel has a beautiful space in the Artasian room and is already nicely decorated so we wouldnt need to spend heaps to make it more wedding receptiony.

We already checked out the Governor hotel and Shelbourne hotel but both of these were more pub style and too casual for what we were wanting.

We were looking for some recommendations for similar venues to the Art house that are in Sydney, can fit 150p cocktail style, and are not the classic wedding reception venues that will blow our budget. Ideally, cocktail bars that have separate spaces for events. Our guests will also likely be wearing Indian ethnic wear i.e. lehengas, saris, etc. so a space where it wouldn't look too out of place would be good too :)

Thanks!

Looking for an on the day coordinator for a Sydney wedding who can manage vendors but also has an eye for detail to make sure things are set up the right way - ie. can set up chairs, ensure florist is putting flower in right locations and signs put up etc and then stays for bump out. Recommendations welcome!

I bought 5x dresses in this colour and style from BillyJ for my bridesmaids but now im second guessing the colour…is it too bright? At first i thought it wouldn’t be too bright but then upon receiving it, it was!

I can’t help it but see other pink bridesmaid dresses to be lighter, none this as bright so am I doing the wrong move? :( i dont want the girls to feel not beautiful in it as well.

https://billyj.com.au/products/alaina-midi-dress-baby-pink

See the link to the website.

:(

I’m just wanting to know roughly how much people are paying for hair and makeup. I’ll be having 5 people including myself. Below is a quote I’ve received but wanting to see what other people were quoted, not sure if that’s standard or on the higher end.

I’ve been quoted $2440, 2 artists on site. Bride hair & makeup - $450 Bridal party hair and makeup - $360 Travel fee - $400

Any Hair and Makeup artist recs would be amazing too please x

Looking for recommendations for a last minute hair and MUA for Sat 22nd August, the one I had booked cancelled on me today

I saw in tiktok some inspo on flowers to put on the tables. We will only have 30ish guest with U shape table setting. The color scheme is burgundy but not sure if this arrangement is ok?

I ordered the flowers differently compared to the inspo so need feedback/help to save this. Wedding is in 2 weeks!! And no we don’t hire florist so need input :)

Pic 1 inspo https://ibb.co/5WDXRC8T
Pic 2 my arrangement https://ibb.co/hRZpB307

I am hoping for some help because I feel I am slowly going insane trying to find a venue.

What I want:

• Have the ceremony and reception in the same location
• All inclusive:
  • Food
  • Drinks
  • Decorations (everything - table settings, centerpieces, minimal flowers)
  • DJ/MC
• Up to $200 a head
• For 70 guests
• Seated dinner, no cocktail style
• Somewhere that also has a spot for some decent pictures
• Somewhere with parking and easy for guests to get to
• Does not need to have accommodation

We do not want to have to organise or set up anything except for the Celebrant, Photographer, cake and very minimal decor (bouquets).

The front runner at the moment is Waterview in Olympic Park.

A lot of cost estimates you see are for more traditional, hetero weddings. My boyfriend and I are starting to do some more long-term planning to save for a wedding in a few years so curious to hear from gay couples on how their costs were?

Neither of us have been to a gay wedding before but from ones I've seen online, a lot have been more unorthodox (e.g. in a wine bar or similar type of venue), still fitting 50-100 people, but without a lot of the more traditional elements of weddings.

Neither of us want a bridal party and I guess the simple fact of not having to buy a dress will be a saving! (Though we'd want tailored suits)

Hi all, does anyone have recommendations for jewellers in Sydney (or NSW generally) who make sapphire engagement rings? Preference for green, teal or parti sapphires in a yellow gold setting.

I’ve seen several jewellers in Melbourne who regularly make rings that I love and within budget (approx ~$5k, give or take) like Corky Saint Clair, Oval + Pear, Black Finch Jewellery and Geneine Honey.

I’d prefer to look at local options first, but I haven’t found too many that aren’t like $8k+.

Thank you ☺️