Lara Hotz & Cass Mezups

Imperial Hotel Erskineville, NEW SOUTH WALES

STAR CROSSED LOVERS Lara and Cass met in a little pub in Redfern in 2011, where every week a group of Lara's friends would meet to play Bingo and have dinner. Cass came along to one of the nights and Lara recalls she was immediately drawn to her. "I introduced myself to her, we started chatting and the rest is history."

FIRST WEDDING Lara and Cass couldn't wait in 2015 for Australia's aThree years later, in December 2017, same sex marriage was legalised in Australia and Lara and Cass got planning "...we wanted something completely different from our first wedding. We wanted it to feel like a fun, wild ride and visually explosive."

The moment the two were looking forward to the most was being surrounded by friends and family and finally being able to be legally recognised as married and signing their marriage certificate. "Signing our certificate was a pretty special moment for both of us" recalled Lara.

PLANNING WEDDING TWO Working closely with their stylist and planner, Event Zen, to bring their vision to life. "So many hours were spent on Pinterest finding so many incredibly inspiring ideas and working out how best to pull it all together. In the end, once the brief was created I passed the baton over to Jerin from Bohemian Blooms who pulled it all together for us so perfectly and with the help of Nat from Event Zen everything ran effortlessly on the day."

TOGETHER Lara and Cass had always known they wanted to get ready and spend the entire day together. They spent the the night before at the Collectionist Hotel. "We all spent the morning getting ready together and hanging out. Then Cass and I helped each other get dressed, went off and had some photographers taken before the ceremony so that we could spend as much time with everyone after we were married."

DRESSING UP Lara fell in love with a 2014 Emilio Pucci Runway dress and became the initial inspiration for her dress design. "I always knew I wanted to have something custom made as I never wanted to wear a traditional bridal gown. What I didn't envision was that it would be so hard was finding the perfect fabric."

Lara discovered whilst there are so many incredible beaded fabrics in white and ivory there were very limited options for a bride who wanted to wear gold metallic. After several weeks of fabric hunting she met Stephanie from Sant Elia. "She pulled everything together for me and created the most exquisite and intricate dress."

For the reception, Lara changed into a simple and elegant black dress by Rachel Gilbert worn with a leather jacket embroidered in red roses and metallic studs.

CEREMONY ELEMENTS A number of elements were created for fun and surprise to the ceremony, not only for guests but as a point of difference to their first ceremony. "We worked with our celebrant to write 8 spells that we hand selected our guests to read out to us and then add some glitter into our magic vessel which held our wedding rings.

"Our guests had no idea they were going to be called up to read these spells, and all of them were tailored to something funny or personal to do with the person reading them. It was such a special and entertaining element to our ceremony."

BREAKING THE GLASS Paying homage to Lara's Jewish background they included the breaking of the glass in their ceremony. "Tip: never try to break a glass in high heels. My shoe just kept slipping off and I ended up having to pick it up and smash the glass on the ground. Much to everyone's amusement" laughed Lara.

MOTHERS' LOVE Lara and Cass' mother's witnessed and signed the marriage certificate. "We surprised them with this on the day and they both started crying. Our celebrant read out a little poem we had written to them to show our appreciation to them both."

VENUE WITH ROOTS The Imperial Hotel in Erskineville was deliberately chosen as the venue of choice due to its strong LGBTQI roots. "It was about feeling like we were in a safe and inclusive space to ensure that the day felt as special and wonderful as possible. It was one of the most important decisions we made."

The Imperial ensured resident drag queens came to mingle and dance with guests applying glitter to guests from the glitter station."It was just the most perfect environment, everyone was incredibly friendly – they went above and beyond for us and it well exceeded our wildest dreams."

ECLECTIC STYLE The styling brief was 'eclectic' and working with their stylist and wedding planner boundless inspiration was sourced; this included scenes from Baz Luhrmann's 'Romeo and Juliet'. From Juliet's bedroom to the final death scene with hundreds of candles layered on the ground as the dramatic story unfolded of two star-crossed lovers.

THE STAGE IS SET Blooms and ‘greenery’ had opposing looks. They chose clean stemmed and open structural imported roses. On masse they created an explosion of blooming rose beds. Complimenting their choice of rose was a mass of orchids, that cascaded softly against the structured backdrop. Rafus palms were sprayed gold to resemble the 20’s deco. "The starburst shape worked flawlessly as the backbone to the floral installations. We threw in a handful of anthuriums as delight.

DAY AND NIGHT The ceremony held in the glass atrium of the venue was styled lighter and brighter. It was the romantic part of the day and they wanted that to have an ambience about the purity of their commitment to each other.

Using Juliet’s bedroom design from Baz Luhrmann's portrayal of Romeo and Juliet, combined with Marie Antionette’s timeless and definitive colour palette, Event Zen transformed the space into a lush ceremony stage.

As night fell the reception transported guests to a darker and whimsical space that was filled with candles and pops of Neon, designed by Cass, who is a graphic designer and created by Sammy and Lola.

"As this was our second wedding we tried to steer clear on anything too traditional. We wanted to just have fun! We opted for no bridal party. However, I did ask my grandmother who is in her mid 80's to be our flower girl. She walked down the aisle before us with a basket of petals, scattering them as she walked. She completely stole the show."

SCENE IS SET With the formalities out the way it was now time to party. The room was styled with tinsel strips, pink and red neon signs un masse, clustered gold candlesticks with wax dripping that seemed to burn endlessly. Black and gold palm starbursts we scattered and was a subtle tie back to the ceremony scene.

The length of the reception wall was lined with tinsel covered mesh screens and countless layered neon lights, creating a continuous wall of scene-setting art. The long banqueting table were draped in fabrics and florals.

"Sammy and Lola had custom made the neon light made for us which Cass designed. Young Hearts Run Free, a favourite, was placed directly behind where we were sitting at the banquet table. We were also completely obsessed with our Neon Light wall installation. It was perfect and set the tone for the reception."

FAVOURS Made from Black Pantry Marshmallows as Lara is a huge marshmallow lover so it made perfect sense to share these incredible marshmallow creations with our guests.

THE CAKE Stacy Brewer designed their wedding cake consisting of two tiers. Tier one; moist chocolate cake, oreo pieces, cookies and cream buttercream and milk chocolate ganache. Tier two; vanilla bean cake, salted caramel buttercream, peanut praline and dulch de leche. "In one word: DELICIOUS!"

THE SOUNDTRACK

WALKING DOWN THE AISLE -
'A CHANGE IS GONNA COME' by ARETHA FRANKLIN

EXITING AISLE
'YOUNG HEARTS RUN FREE' by CANDI STATON

"We choose our Aretha Franklin song because of the message behind the lyrics and it is a very beautiful song. Young Hearts Run Free because it's just a fun song that exudes so much joy!

Adam from the Vintage Stylus was spinning vinyl for us all day and night long!"