Bride of the Year 2003 - Winner

Our Winner

When we were planning our wedding my sister Beck was helping me look for suppliers and she came across True Bride. I thank her so much for finding this site and telling me all about the competition (and being the one to enter me originally). Although the prize money was definitely of interest to me when entering the competition, a bigger part of it was reliving our wonderful day. It was the best day ever and the opportunity to keep reliving it through True Bride and the competition was too good to knock back.

Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me. I emailed everybody I possibly knew who had access to email and asked them to forward the email onto everyone they knew also. Everyone was really happy to vote for me and were very interested in hearing the results. It was so lovely to have as much support as I did from everyone. I certainly campaigned very hard and drove everyone crazy with my name constantly popping up in their inbox reminding them to vote. It all paid off!

I heard a lot of positive comments about True Bride from family and friends. I have a few friends getting married in the next few months so I’m sure from getting on the site to vote for me they have found lots of contacts to help them with their big days too. Also, a big thank you is in order to the wedding suppliers who helped make our day possible, and who deserve recognition as the 'wedding suppliers of the Bride of the Year 2003'.

The Romance

Steve and I first met in 1996 at work. At the time we were both in long term relationships so there wasn’t any romantic involvement. We got along very well and were good friends and very much on the same wavelength. We agree though that even though we didn’t get together straight away there was an attraction there very early in our friendship. About 12 months later, and both single, we went out for Friday night drinks after work. This is when we first kissed and never looked back!!!

Steve proposed to me Christmas Eve in 2001. He always said that he would never propose around Christmas or my birthday as it would be too obvious so really I wasn’t expecting it. He’d planned to propose on Christmas morning but when he got home on Christmas Eve, I had organised seafood and a nice bottle of wine for dinner and he thought that it was the perfect opportunity to ‘pop the question’.

It was very romantic as he had the ring also. I was so excited that I cried. I don’t think the smile left my face for a very long time. I had pointed out the ring that I really loved a couple of years before he proposed. I also found a picture of it which I gave him and he held onto it for all that time. He found a jeweller and had the ring made for me. He hid it in his draw at work for about 3 weeks and then had it at home for about a week waiting for Christmas to arrive! Lucky I wasn’t cleaning out draws at home!!! It is just beautiful and exactly what I wanted and definitely added to the moment when he proposed. I felt very special that he’d remembered exactly what I loved and had gone about planning everything without me knowing, he made sure that everything was perfect, this meant the world to me.

Our Wedding Day

We set our wedding date fairly quickly and had a fantastic Engagement Party and then moved on to planning our special day, in just over 13 months. We booked the church and reception very early on as we didn’t want to miss out on the places that we loved so much. I thrive on organising events so had an absolute ball with planning our Wedding. Everything was booked and ordered fairly early which in some ways made the 13 months take ages to roll around.

I am one of those people who likes to keep everyone happy. I was worried early in the planning that we would be making plans and others may not like them but then I realised that nobody had any rules on how things had to be done, it was just me being silly worrying about everyone else. One piece of advice from my mum when we got engaged was to make sure that Steve and I had the day that we had both dreamt of and we most certainly did, thanks for that advice Mum!

I usually get stressed about things but the couple of weeks leading up to the wedding and on the day I was the most relaxed I’ve ever been – that must have been a sign that I was marrying the most beautiful man in the world and it was all right! The night before our big day I slept like a baby. I woke to a beautiful, sunny summers day of 26 degrees, we couldn’t have asked for better. I was so excited, but from the time my feet hit the floor it was go go go with, hairdresser, makeup, getting dressed, photographer/videographer. I had created a running sheet for the day and believe it or not, it all ran to time. Everything was just perfect.

My bridesmaids and I stayed at my parents house the night before the wedding and had a great night with lots of laughs and a few drinks. I wear my heart on my sleeve and am quite emotional and on the day I was just so excited. I wore my late Grandmothers Wedding band as my ‘something old’, this was so special to me but as soon as I put it on, I started to cry as I wished that she was here to enjoy my special day with me. I had to contain myself as I’d just had my make up done and didn’t think it would look good with mascara all over my face!!!

Steve also had a wonderful morning. The boys all stayed at our house and they had a nice relaxing morning and then made their way to Steve’s parents house to get ready and have photos done. They went off to the pub for lunch and had a great day. I think a few beers too to settle those nerves!

The day was just full of excitement. Both of my parents travelled with me in the car to the church. This was a really special time for all of us being together for that exciting trip to the church. My sister Rebecca and my Bridesmaid Melinda were in another car. It was such a great trip. The amount of people that stop to look and wave is just so amazing, it made me feel like a princess.

Arriving at the church was just great. My nerves still hadn’t hit me, just excitement. Seeing people at the front of the church waiting to see me was just terrific. I got out of the car saying hi to everyone and waving like I was royalty!

My sister Beck took one look at me when we got out of the car and got very teary, she’d held it together all morning but then it hit her that it was all happening.

Steve meanwhile was standing at the alter with our Best Man Chris and Groomsman Michael. He was looking very excited and happy from all reports. A comment we’ve heard so many times from people is that they’ve never seen a Groom look so happy!

Our wedding was semi formal with around 130 guests. We were married at St Dominic’s Catholic Church in Camberwell. We’re not religious people and I’m not Catholic so we didn’t want to have a long Ceremony. The one thing that I was so excited about for months leading up to our Wedding was walking down the aisle on my dad’s arm and looking toward the alter through my veil to the Man of My dreams who I was about to marry. Even walking down the aisle I was excited! I was waving to everyone and saying Hello. I was certainly a very excited bride.

Our priest Father Dominic Murphy performed the most beautiful Ceremony and it went for about 45 minutes. We had our band ‘The Melody Line’ sing in the church also and they were terrific.

We had our photos done at the South Melbourne town hall and in a street in South Yarra also. We had lots of fun having our photos taken and made sure that we had some drinks along the way. Everyone was waiting at the reception drinking so why should we be missing out!

Our Wedding Reception

The reception was held at Nine Darling Street (NDS) in South Yarra. It was just amazing. From our first meeting with the people at NDS we just fell in love with the place and the people were absolute gems to deal with and nothing was a problem. Everything was just perfect on the day and the food was beautiful. We couldn’t have asked for anything more. We had Gerbras as our theme and had beautiful centrepieces made for every table and they looked great, it made it nice and bright and happy which is what the day was all about.

At the reception we made a grand entrance, our parents and bridal party were introduced and in the back ground we had classical music playing. When the bride and groom entered, we’d teed it up with the band to play, ‘I was made for loving you’ by Kiss. It was hilarious and really got the party started. Everyone still says how fantastic it was. We had so much fun at the reception. We had all the people that we love there and had a great time dancing the night away.

The day was the best day of our lives. People told us how fast the day would go but until you go through it yourself you don’t realise just how fast it does go. You have to stand back and take it all in for 5 minutes and saver the moment.

On the Sunday after the wedding my Parents arranged a BBQ at their house for our friends and family to come along to. We opened up all of our amazing presents. We just didn’t want this wonderful time of our lives to end.

Bride of the Year 2003 - Wedding Suppliers

A big thank you is in order to the wedding suppliers who helped make our day possible and who deserve recognition as the 'wedding suppliers of the Bride of the Year 2003'.