At first glance, this might look like an engagement shoot, and not an actual wedding. It oozes all of the fun! In fact, this is one of the most fun-filled and dynamic weddings we've ever seen! You know how some couples joke about getting married in Vegas? Well for Sam and Scott, it was no joke - they did it, and they did it well! The photographs of their big day are wildly fun and colourful, and Vegas proved to be the most incredible backdrop. Their photographer, Leslie from Sakura Photography, did THE most amazing job with Sam and Scott's wedding photos and we were literally spoilt for choice with which to show on the blog for this feature. Every image shows a little something about this couple's personality, and there isn't one photo where they aren't bursting with happiness.
Sam and Scott also happen to be the founders of Hello Pretty. Remember this feature we did on their store here? Throughout the madness of their wedding planning, they also managed to set up this amazing online store that we all now know and love. Crazily talented people! Without further ado, here is their little white Vegas wedding...
THE BASICS:
Full names of the bride and groom: Samantha Marx and Scott Hadfield
Date and year of your wedding: 29 January 2011
Venue: A Little White Wedding Chapel, Las Vegas
Colour and/or Theme: Vintage / tacky / over the top!
THE DETAILS:
So what’s your love story?
We are a computer nerd love story! My Scotty is Canadian, and I'm from Jozi. We met in the middle, at at a web developer's conference in Barcelona.
We became inseparable internet buddies after that, and he came to visit me a while after. We spent a year traveling together on a mammoth and magical round-the-world trip, and then asked me to marry him in Tokyo, one of my favourite cities. The rest, as they say, is history.
How did he propose?
The proposal happened much like the rest of our relationship - far from home, and unexpectedly! Scott had plans to propose to me one evening at Shibuya crossing in Tokyo, the largest and busiest intersection in the world. You know the one you always see in movies, with hundreds of people just moering across the road every which way? At the last minute he felt that it wasn't right and changed his mind and instead got down on his knee, produced The Blue Box, and asked me to marry him in a quiet street as we were walking back to our hotel. The ring is every girl's dream: a classic Tiffany solitaire.
What was the best lesson you learnt through planning your wedding?
Honestly? Do it right the first time, because it's stressful enough for you to never want to get married again! ;)
Aside from that, I'd say try not to take yourselves, or the event too seriously.
A wedding is ultimately a celebration of you and your partner, so as long as you get that right, the rest is just icing on the cake.
And cake. Don't forget to eat as much cake as you can. This is applicable for both weddings, and life in general.
Any tips for brides to be?
As before, try not to get too bogged down in details. This might sound hard to believe, but the world will not fall apart if your salon runs out of the nail polish colour you'd chosen. The perfect wedding is one that ends with you being called "Mrs", and that's what you should probably try to remember.
How did you decide on the colour or theme of your wedding?
All we were looking for was an Elvis. We wanted the top-of-the-range Vegas tack, and I'd say we got it. We got married at the famous Little White Wedding Chapel, which is where Britney Spears once infamously tied the knot. I'm happy to say our marriage has outlasted hers.
Since it was Vegas, I'd say we didn't really have a choice of theme. We figured that if we were going to "do" Vegas, we were going to do it properly. We tasked everyone invited with wearing something that they usually wouldn't. Boy did they deliver, and in ways I could never have imagined. After the ceremony, strangers in the street were asking to have photographs taken with us.
How involved was your husband or family in the wedding planning?
Every single person who attended was extremely involved (as well as some friends who weren't able to make it). They were all wonderful, and so enthusiastic. Our amazing photographer, Leslie, is actually one of Scott's oldest and best friends (and fortuitously, a highly sought-after Vancouver wedding photographer). She drove me around to find shoes and clothes (including across the border from Vancouver to the US to shop!), spent countless hours patiently discussing details, and then she took the amazing photographs that you see here. It would have been a very different affair without her involvement and guidance. We had friends who flew in from all over the world, and even those who couldn't be there contributed in some way; like my other bestie Nadine, who lives in Sydney and bought my veil for me off Etsy.
What would you change about your wedding day if you could?
I'd book a hairdresser's appointment in advance - two hours before we were due to leave for the photo shoot, I was frantically running up and down the Vegas strip trying to find a hair stylist! I'd mistakenly thought they'd be everywhere. They are not everywhere, they are nowhere. I ended up paying $120 for someone in an upmarket salon in our hotel to GHD my hair.
Were there any elements of your wedding that you did yourself?
Well, we planned the entire thing ourselves, if that counts. Otherwise, not really - it's hard to imagine handmade or DIY touches in Vegas. All of our friends and family got involved with planning, venues, food, crazy outfits and so on though - that's part of what made it so special.
Did anything unexpected or extra special happen on your wedding day that surprised you and your husband? (Or just you!)
Scott arranged for my mother to be there, and sorted out her flights all the way from Johannesburg! It was completely and 100% unexpected, and my jaw absolutely dropped when I saw her walk through the door - looking fabulous in a green 50s style dress no less. It was a real drama for her to arrive - my mother has the worst luck with flights of anyone I've ever known: her plane was scheduled to touch down in NY en-route to Vegas, and due to blizzarding snowstorm conditions, she was re-routed to, and briefly stuck in, Boston.
What was your wedding song?
Blue Suede Shoes, sung to us by none other than our Elvis! I don't know if we chose it so much as it chose us. It was the perfect song for a wedding that wasn't taking itself too seriously.
What was the flavour of your cake?
I might be shunned by every other bride on earth for saying this, but we didn't actually have a cake. Nina, another of my besties and the beauty you see in yellow in the photos, had travelled from Chicago to be there and insisted that we needed to seal the deal with cake. So she went out and bought a selection of beautiful mini cakes from the Bellagio hotel. They were like little works of art, but fairly impromptu, just like a lot of our wedding. :)
Did you go on Honeymoon? And if so, where did you go?
Scott organised our entire honeymoon and managed to keep it 100% secret right up until the day we left - when he accidentally let it slip at the airport, after we'd checked in and everything! I would have been furious with him, were it not for the fact that I was so excited that we were going to Turkey. We spent two magical weeks there, exploring Istanbul, Cappadocia, and a few other out of the way places. It was magical, and a dream realised for me. Scott had gone to the extra trouble of creeping around my pinterest boards to figure out something special that I would love. What a guy. He booked us into the top suite at The Hezen Hotel, a luxury ancient cave-hotel in Capadoccia. It is even better than the pictures, if you can believe that.
SERVICE PROVIDERS:
Venue: A Little White Wedding Chapel
Coordinator: N/A
Photographer: Sakura Photography as a very generous gift.
Decor: Lots of plastic
Stationery: N/A
Dress (including bridesmaids dresses): Vintage 1960s dress from a New York designer whose name escapes me, with 50s puffy petticoat, purchased on Commercial Drive in Vancouver. Nina's yellow dress was made from a dress that her American mother wore on the day she moved from Oregon to Johannesburg.
Hair: Vdara Hotel, for a quick GHDing.
Makeup: One of the wonderful ladies in the Mac store in one of the casinos
Flowers: I had a bouquet of white roses – they came free with the Elvis package from the chapel. And they say Vegas has no class.
Catering: This wasn't catered. But we did go for dinner at an authentic off-the-strip Italian place for dinner after, with an elderly Italian accordian player and everything.
Cake: Impromptu mini cake selection from the Bellagio Hotel's cake shop, bought by my bestie Nina.Labels: Hello Pretty, Real Weddings, Sakura Photography, Vegas