“One day, I will get married here,” 17-year-old Amber told her grandmother after spotting the St Mary’s by the Sea chapel for the first time. Fast forward a few years and those words rang true when Amber wed her sweetheart Taylor in an elegant seaside celebration (ceremony at St Mary’s of course!).
“I fell in love with Port Douglas when I first visited with my grandparents,” explains the bride, who has visited the North Queensland enclave every year since. Eventually sharing the locale with Taylor set the scene for an emotional proposal.
“On our second trip together in 2018, while enjoying a very romantic picnic, Taylor popped the question!” she says. “He held my dream ring in my favourite location and with gushing tears of joy and a mouthful of salami, I said yes!!”
Their modern fairytale unfolded before 60 loved ones as the pair exchanged those meant-to-be vows. Then it was on to Salsa Bar & Grill for a decadent reception dinner. “We could not speak more highly of Salsa, everything was just fantastic!” says Amber. “For entree we had oysters three ways, eye fillet steak for mains, and our chocolate mud, ganache-filled wedding cake for dessert.”
Organising a wedding on the other side of the country turned out to be a breeze for the Melbourne-based couple. “Shobha from Port Douglas Weddings and Rhys and the team at Salsa were super helpful and made everything extremely easy and stress free,” says Amber. “I feel like it was so much easier organising a wedding in Port Douglas than it would have been if we had married at home!”
Another bonus was quality time with guests. “We loved that we had our whole family and friends with us to celebrate for an entire week,” says Amber. “With people arriving at different times, there was always excitement!”
Reflecting on the experience, a special memory stands out for Amber: the couple’s first dance. “We danced to Endless Love and my dance with Dad was Shallow (Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper),” she says. “About halfway through, our whole family joined us on the dance floor. We all put our arms around each other and swayed, singing the lyrics at the tops of our lungs. It just demonstrated how much we ALL loved the day and each other.”
The Details:
Wedding date: 05/09/2019 // Ceremony: St Mary’s by the Sea // Reception: Salsa Bar & Grill // Coordinator: Port Douglas Weddings // Photographer: Jacky Cooke at Port Douglas Wedding Photography
