How to Do Colour Maximalism at a Botanic Garden Wedding

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Emily and Brendan gave their guests exactly one styling rule, no black, then built a garden wedding loud enough to earn it. They called the day Garden Soirée, put the groom in dusty pink, and filled a glasshouse with color on color. Running the whole thing through a lens was Calla Lily Collective, the photo and film team who, near midnight, bolted through the blacked out Royal Botanic Garden so the couple could be caught with fireworks bursting over the harbour behind them.

Location: Sydney, Australia
Style: Technicolor, Amorous, Whimsical
Time of planning: 10 months
Number of guests: 115
Setting: Garden Glasshouse
Season: Fall

The couple met at work in 2022, back when she was a stylist at a property styling company and he was on the road crew driving trucks. It started as easy colleague energy, long talks about music, fashion and food, until the conversations drifted to their dating lives and Brendan clocked that they wanted the same things. She was seeing someone at the time, so he sat back and waited. A few months later he asked if she was still taken, she said no, single and ready to mingle, and that was that.

Fast forward to Paris in December 2024. Brendan had planned a sunrise proposal on the steps of Sacré-Cœur, then watched tourists and street vendors swallow any chance of a quiet moment, so he pivoted. Back at their apartment that evening, with wine and cheese and music going, he opened with “I’ve been lying to you,” a callback to the fib that he could not swing both a ring and the trip. The lie was the ring. What followed was a very Parisian night of good food and better wine.

Bride's Morning & Fashion

The dress was the Aspen gown from Kyha, the second one Emily tried at the label and the fifth overall, a duchess satin piece with a straight neckline and a dropped waist. Kyha builds its whole identity on sleek, minimal satin, so the gown carries the fashion without shouting, which is exactly why the veil and the florals got room to talk.

The perfume pulled double duty as a love note. Emily wore Maison Crivelli Hibiscus Mahajád, a nod to hibiscus being Brendan’s favourite flower, and a scent literally built from the memory of hibiscus tea in a gemstone market. Her shoes were the Sassy slingback in Dove from Tony Bianco, found two weeks out and chosen for height and comfort over drama.

Makeup came from Lucy Jackson, recommended by Emily’s sister, who then turned out to live in the same block of units. The whole party got blowouts at Headcase Hair, the Paddington salon Vogue Living once called the prettiest in the city, though Emily’s sister ended up reworking hers into a half up style on the morning itself.

Gold earrings with a baroque pearl came from A.B. Ellie in the States, the something borrowed was her mum’s gold Georg Jensen infinity bracelet, and she wore a plain gold ring shared between her mum, her sister and herself. She also kept one of her late Pop’s handkerchiefs on her through the ceremony, which does more than any accessory can. For the reception she wanted out of the gown and into something with movement, and found it the Monday before the wedding, a Misha maxi grabbed from Girls with Gems in Double Bay.

Emily has called the morning one of her favourites, hair appointments out with her girls, then home to finish makeup with family around. She did first looks with her Dad and her brother to get the tears going early, then a second with her Nonna, now her only living grandparent.

Groom’s Fashion

Brendan knew his suit would have color before he knew anything else about it. He first wanted green, then talked it through with Dean at The Bespoke Boys and switched to a dusty pink so he would not disappear into the garden, made to measure at InStitchu on George Street. He finished it with brown leather brogues from Hugo Boss, his own engagement ring from Laher Design, and an earring Emily had gifted him a month earlier, accessorising being a habit he picked up only after meeting her.

His groomsmen went the other way on the same colour wheel, deep oxblood suits that let the groom read as the standout while nobody looked out of step, and they made their entrance by vintage boat to the finger wharf, which is a very Sydney way to arrive at your own wedding.

Ceremony

The ceremony happened inside Palm House, an old glasshouse in the Royal Botanic Garden that the couple chose for a specific reason, cover from the weather without losing the feeling of being outside. They have described it as feeling like a church without being a church, which is about the highest compliment you can pay a greenhouse.

The Bespoke Boys built a tall floral display at the altar, high enough to still register with a six foot four groom standing in front of it, and pulled a cascading green drape down into the room to frame the whole thing.

The florals leaned on cymbidium orchids, and that was not a styling accident. Emily’s grandmother could keep orchids alive forever, so making cymbidiums the star was a way to carry her into the day. The palette ran on the reds and greens that Brendan and Emily each gravitated to, his green and her pink meeting in the middle, with the one guest instruction of no black so the room would fill with color.

Scarlett at Happily Ever Arthur wrote and led the ceremony, and knew the couple well enough to suggest flipping the classic line to “you may kiss your husband,” which they loved. The Zanc’s played an acoustic version of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s You’re All I Need To Get By as Emily came in, then sent everyone off to the canapé hour with an acoustic of L.A.B.’s Yes I Do. Both of them cried through their vows and dried the tears with Pop’s handkerchief.

Moments Together

After the ceremony, the lawn outside Palm House turned into a cocktail garden with lounge settings and cocktail tables while canapés and sparkling went around, the Blanc de Blanc keeping things easy. The best detour came later. When the couple clocked that the Handa Opera’s Phantom of the Opera was staging in the gardens that night, they realised there would be fireworks over the harbour, so they ran for it.

Calla Lily Collective took off with them through the almost pitch black gardens toward the water’s edge, timed it, and came back with fireworks photos that Brendan calls one of the funniest sprints of the night. Photographers who will chase a firework with you are a different breed.

Reception

Botanic House, the restaurant by Luke Nguyen a short walk from the ceremony, hosted the reception, which tells you the food was handled. The ceremony florals got a second life on the bar and the cake table, so nothing beautiful went to waste. Emily’s brother ran the night as MC, and the couple walked straight into a first dance to Snoh Aalegra’s Someone Like You, choreographed just enough by their friend Crystal that they did not freeze up.

Brendan is Fijian, and his uncle Tim opened with a welcome to bring both families together before Brendan’s eldest siblings and cousin placed the salusalu on the couple, a Fijian garland that marks two families becoming one.

The cake was a very last minute yes from Black Star Pastry, ordered the week of and still landing. Speeches came from the Maid of Honour Maggie, Emily’s little sister, the Best Man Kane, who managed to smuggle a swear word past both sets of parents, and then both fathers, Rod and Adrian, to close it out. Two of their friends who breakdance turned the dance floor into their own battle, which is one way to send a party home.