Mid century mexicana warehouse wedding

“We met Kate in February with the idea of hiring some furniture from her, but were so blown away we hired her to create & style our entire Wedding.

The GDR warehouse is home to beautiful furniture, and an even more beautiful team. Kate’s passion and zest for what she does radiates in everything she puts together. Couple this with her meticulous planning, attention to detail, love for stepping outside of the box and her mega-team and you’re in for a treat! Highly recommend for any one looking for styling / hiring / creating / a wizard of a time.”

Emily + Nick

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐, via Google

Em + Nick’s wedding

Two Ton Max, North Melbourne

Emily + Nicholas – a pair of extreme dreamboats, who we loved from the first moment we met them. All of our event styling and design meetings went for four thousand hours and they were the best type of clients who trust you to do your creative best, push the envelope lots, all along, saying yes to things and just being hand down ace.

The outcome was a beautiful, colourful, super fun wedding that was so totally ‘them’. Their guests loved it and it was the rad party they’d told me they wanted from the very beginning. Don’t just take our word for it, it’s been featured in one the coolest wedding blogs in the world, Rock n Roll Bride! 

Nick + Em were top of the class with their Pinterest homework – one of the steps we go through to understand you and what you like – they each did a board, and then a joint board too. There was def competition about whose board was better. And like pretty much everyone who asks us on board as their wedding stylist, they couldn’t see how it would all come together. So many pins, so many styles, so little cohesion. The old illusion of accessibility as a result of Pinterest had struck again – it’s so easy to pin a billion things and go down dozens of worm holes in one sitting. How did I end up looking at pink lawnmowers, we ask ourselves at 1.14am?

But this is where we event stylists shine ???. We love nothing more than to look at all your pins, review our consult notes, think about your venue and what you want to achieve – for Em + Nick – a traditional with a twist ceremony, followed by cocktail hour that degraded into a dive bar dance party by the wee hours.  We take all that and work up that elusive concept. For Em + Nick, it was Mid-Century Mexicana. The thread that ran through all their visuals was clean, sleek lines, neon lights, diners, Mexican patterns, LA/Tijuana dive bars and pops of colour. A super retro feel. 

Nick was even restoring his powder blue EJ Holden station wagon for the wedding (which was not only their transport, but became the best ever photobooth backdrop, when we drove it inside post-ceremony!). And thus the concept came together – which made the design an absolute delight. They had their first date at Section 8 – an iconic Melbourne bar made of pallets, so we included a nod to this in the design (and as you can see above, they had their first look there, awwwww). The only thing they didn’t love about the venue was the marble bar so we decided to transform that. And off we went! 

Two Ton Max is a large warehouse, that’s been transformed into an event space. It’s one big space, so we decided to create two spaces, so that guests could be focused on the ceremony, and then transition into the reception slash party space. Guest were welcomed to the Melbourne wedding ceremony with champagne, served from our Golden Gaytime gold vinyl bar, which was styled with many beautiful pot plants – a big nod to the Mexicana part of the concept, flowers by Good Grace and Humour and genuine Mid-century knick knacks from our collection.

The venue’s namesake – the two ton max crane – was  used to delineate the two spaces and to hang the ceremony backdrop from. The ceremony backdrop was large fabric panels in Mid-century modern patters, with two 60s mint coloured screen door frame inserts used to house the wedding ceremony floral design. Tropical and with the beautiful colours of Mexican gardens, Good Grace and humour really outdid themselves. We also decide to use the venue’s height and many rigging points and draw people’s eyes up, to the hanging arrangements in pink, yellow, green and blue. A range of our Mid-Century modern dining chairs were used in colours to complement the florals.  

With the rest of the venue, we worked with the features, but the marble bar was really not popular in Em + Nick’s book so we took to transforming it. Adding the shipping pallets to the front recess was a nod to their first date at Section 8. he shapes were made of vinyl and were applied to create a Mexican tiled feel. And the fabulous graphic design played a role here too – designer By Jena Marie knocked it out of the park. The neon-style projection and the bar sign with nods to retro diner iconography but with a fresh modern look, really brought the area to life, along with some rad pot plants and flowers (and heaps of drinks, duh!). The neon logo was repeated throughout – on Em’s leather jacket, on the other stationery – even as vinyl decals on the table tennis table! 

A mega giant double lounge area was another feature of the design. Heaps of rad Mid-century modern pieces in velvets and vinyls, clusters of small tables, rugs and heaps of plants really warmed up the space – which is SUPER important in a stark warehouse space such as Two Ton Max. Concrete and white and metal need warm colours, and giving textures, and rugs, heaps of rugs, dozens of cushions! The plethora of plants also helped to warm and cosy-up the space too – partic for that late night dive bar feel. Mirroring the ceremony, more fabric panels and suspended floral arrangements assisted with the warming of the space – those very tall white walls can be a little overwhelming otherwise. 

A kick-arse dance floor was high on the priority list too. A bangin’ dancefloor duth not just happen people – it’s a very technical recipe!

And so, a mammoth 4.5m x 2.5m backdrop was conceived to create a dedicated DJ and dance floor space, and a radical backdrop for all those ace dance floor photos later in the eve. We wanted to create the ribbon feel and use the Mexy colours, but with a twist. So I got Em + Nick to purchase about 100 metres of polyester lining fabric, cut it into strips and then tie it together. Now, we ask every couple if they are into DIY at the outset. People are either in 100% or they are out. Nick and EM are both creative, handy people and even though they were getting us in to do the design and styling, they wanted to take part too. 

Anywho, it took them and a big bunch of friends 12 hours and they’d only just gotten started. The backdrop was bigger than the biggest room in their house. Nick’s brother stayed with them for the week leading to the wedding and the backdrop making continued for daysssssss. And guess what? They don’t want to craft anything ever again. And they took a big DIY break. This type of stuff can take HOURS – so next time you get a quote from a supplier and there’s labour involved, think of this story and you’ll understand why things can seem to cost a lot – literally, hundreds of hours can go into one part of a design!

The other ingredients of the bangin’ dance floor recipe were our rad retro Ron Swanson bar as a DJ booth, a rug to also mark the space, plants and a chandalier, as well as some fun overhead and uplighting. 

CEREMONY

RECEPTION

Enjoying the party

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