Kat & Jeremy's Wizard of Oz vow renewal ⋆ Unconventional Wedding

Today on our wedding blog, we’re super excited to share with you this stunning vow renewal. Especially as it has the most wonderful back story behind it.

Gwenda from Bohotanical planned a meaningful vow renewal for husband and wife team, Kat (also an awesome wedding photographer) and Jeremy, following Kat’s fight with serious illness and the theft of Kat’s wedding rings. As Gwenda told me: “I sensed that the replacement rings, though identical in style to the originals, needed a positive meaning of their own”

So then started the building of crack team of wedding suppliers at one of Gwenda’s favourite wedding venues, The Asylum Chapel. The original bridesmaids, and their children, were also brought into the celebration and friend, and photographer, Cristina Rossi agreed to capture the day for them. Over to Gwenda to describe the rest!

Creating a Wizard of Oz wedding theme

Both Kat and Jeremy are film fans and bibliophiles. Taking our cue from the ‘ruby slippers’ that Kat wore on her wedding day, we developed a Wizard of Oz theme for the styling, and a colour palette of red (the slippers), emerald green (the city), pale blue (Dorothy’s skirt), light pink (for Glinda the good witch) and gold (as a grown up yellow for the brick road!).

An amazing, personalised old-school cinema sign by Locke & Busby, introduced the day and set the tone for the wedding styling ideas to come (which were a mixture of subtle and not so subtle!). Gold confetti balloons from The Sweet Party Shop (alluding to the Wizard’s hot air balloon) lined the aisle, with was set out in a meandering path, like the Yellow Brick Road.

And the bride wore …

Karen of Rock the Frock kindly lent us the exquisite Mae by Chantal Lauren. The colours were a perfect homage to Dorothy, and Kat most definitely rocked that frock! The bridesmaids wore outfits by Velvet Johnstone a skirt by Milamira. Both with matching ivory lace swing tops (from eBay), for a bit of coordination. All the shoes, including Kat’s ‘ruby slippers’ and bow shoe clips, were also sourced from eBay. As were the outfits for Carrick (the ultimate Munchkin) and Kia, including her ‘good witch’ accessories of crown and wand. Blue is Jeremy’s favourite colour, and he looked totally dapper in his Debenhams suit, complete with the Scrabble tile cufflinks, which were a present from Kat.

Ana of BEAUT studio created flawless make-up looks for all the bridal party, and some dramatic lips and sparkling eyes for the bride. Moira from Moira Borg created a variety of hairstyles to suit each model perfectly.

Crafting the vow renewal ceremony

For the ceremony, Jennifer of Scenes & Stories provided a hanging heart backdrop that the Tin Man would have been proud of! Katie of True Blue Ceremonies created all the right words in all the right places with a beautifully-crafted, personalised vow renewal ceremony, complete with hand-fasting. It certainly helped to bring a tear to everyone’s eye as Kat and Jeremy spoke the words of their original vows.

Styling the wedding venue with more Wizard of Oz gorgeousness

Scenes & Stories also provided a lounge area, where more metal wire stars were hung, this time with emerald green dip-dyed cotton streamers. The day bed – both because Kat is the Queen of Naps, but also Dorothy awoke in one at the end of the film – was the perfect setting for some group portraits. Decorating the low table, I made a bucket of moss and succulents to hold some more sweet treats in the form of lollipops (to pay tribute to The Lollipop Guild of Munchkin Land) and an apple (from the quarrelsome Apple Trees in the Land of Oz, of course).

Amongst this set up, taking pride of place upon a ruby-red sequin table cloth (also from The Sweet Party Shop), sat a masterpiece from the Queen of Cakes, none other than Elizabeth’s Cake Emporium. This towering creation (which tasted as good as it looked!), included motifs with a hint of the late Art Deco era, during which the original film was made. Also touching on the geometric forms of the Deco spirit, the stationery designed by Beyond Vintage couldn’t have been more perfect in all its emerald glory.

Stunning wedding florals

Kat allowed me to “go mad” with the florals (dream client brief!), so I used anemone (reminiscent of the poppy field in the film), astilbe, hydrangea, muscari, hellebore, tulips, delphinium, hypericum, moluccella, small leaf pittosporum, eucalyptus, sword fern, ruscus, poppy seed pods and foraged blossoms from the garden, to create statement seasonal bouquets and plinth arrangements.

Kat loves succulents, so I just had to create a headband of succulents for her (though not too big, so as not to hide her incredible hair colours!). For the table, I used some simple green glass bottles for the flowers, allowing the fabulous sequin runner from The Sweet Party Shop to shine through and sparkle in the light of the candles, which I now make as part of an eco-friendly wedding favours and accessories sideline.

Thankyou

“None of it would have been possible without the team who devoted their time and energy to making this happen in spectacular style – I thank you all from the bottom of mine and the Tin Man’s heart!” Gwenda