Carmen + Angus by Alex Marks - Together Journal

Carmen + Angus' Italian countryside-inspired wedding by Alex Marks

Refined Italian Countryside meets Amalfi coast. The venue inspired the style of the wedding.

Tell us a little about yourselves, what you do, what you love…
Carmen is an Accountant working for the University of New South Wales.
Angus is a Structural Engineer working as an Associate Director for a medium sized consulting firm.

AM – My perfect day with Carmen involves doing something fun and active, where we can both disconnect from our normal routines. It is nice if it can be something new. We can explore new things and be excited about it together. This can be going to new places, trying new things, eating new foods, hearing new music, playing a new sport, whatever. It doesn’t matter what it is.

As a general thing, we enjoy doing work outs then being in the sun, relaxing at the beach, eating good food and being with friends. We also like to accomplish things together. I would say that part of our perfect day would involve successfully accomplishing something.

We also like the odd lazy day where we have no obligations and we don’t have to rush around doing things. It is nice if we can just ease into the day without stressing about being somewhere and use that day to reset together.

Travelling and exploring the world is something that we have really enjoyed together. I think our honeymoon to Europe, New York and Bali will be filled with many perfect days.

How/where/when did you meet – and what were your first impressions?
AM – We met on my good friend’s boat party on Sydney Harbour for his 30th birthday. The date was Sunday 2nd December 2018. Carmen wasn’t initially invited to the boat party. However, her friend was, who was a mutual friend of the guy whose party it was.

Carmen had been staying with her friend that weekend, just catching up. While they were out to dinner the night before the party, they ran into the guy whose party it was. He invited Carmen along. Carmen was initially in two minds as to whether she would come. The next morning, Carmen decided to come on the boat. Best decision she ever made! We first met on the boat, where we had a couple of cute interactions and started to hit it off.

Regarding first impressions, there was without a doubt something strong between us at first interaction. Our first interactions were so natural – it felt like we’d known each other for a long time, we just seemed to understand each other. We were both so like-minded and our senses of humour were so similar, it just felt like we were meant to be together.

Carmen is obviously very stunning, so it was easy to get my attention before we’d even met. Then hearing her accent and being intrigued by her exoticness really attracted me. After that, it didn’t take long to realise how compatible we were. It was really within the first few hours of having met that we figured all that out.

When did you first realise that this was someone you’d like to spend the rest of your life with?
It was pretty much within the first few hours of us having met that the idea of moving into a relationship was clear to us. We became pretty much inseparable from that point onwards. And as it’s turned out, it’s pretty much remained that way ever since. The feeling has only become stronger over the last 5 years.

There was a little period of uncertainty about 3 weeks after we first met when Carmen left on a 4 week holiday to South Africa (where she is originally from), before there was a 2 day crossover and Angus left on a trip to America for 4 more weeks.

We both really hoped that we didn’t lose contact throughout this time apart so close to the start of our time together. But we didn’t end up having an issue at all. We ended up messaging every day we were apart, hung out the 2 days we crossed over between each other’s trips and then met up again on Angus’ first day back from America. And the rest is history.

Although we already had a strong inkling about us at the start, it was once we got through that initial time apart and we came back together that we knew that we would be together from that point onwards.

Italian countryside inspired wedding at Redleaf.

Was there a proposal? Tell us a little about it…
There ended up being a few planned iterations of it. The plans had to be changed quite a few times due to the wind. The proposal ended up being in the Hunter Valley (as well). It ended up happening Saturday 13 November 2021.

AM – The first go at organising the proposal involved booking a hot air balloon to take us up over the vineyards and me proposing up in the sky. The forecasted wind for the Saturday ended up putting a stop to that.

The next plan involved me phoning the staff at the vineyard estate we were booked in to stay at and brainstorming options to propose on their site. What was decided was that the staff would set up candles, rose petals and a bottle of champagne in the rotunda for the proposal. The plan was to return from lunch and some wine tasting and propose. The only disclaimer was, if it’s too windy it won’t work because everything will get strewn everywhere. I was happy to take my chances at this stage.

The morning of the proposal, the wind was very strong and the rotunda option was lost.

The final idea involved setting up all the rose petals and candles in our villa. The staff would get the fire going, put on some music, put the champagne on ice and set up a cheese board. And that’s how it played out.

When we returned from our day of exploring the Hunter Valley, Carmen opened the door to the villa and there were rose petals leading down the hallway. As we walked in, it all started to click for her and the tears started to flow. At this time, I got down on one knee and asked Carmen to marry me. She said yes and it was all the greatest feeling ever.

The whole thing was amazing. One of the biggest things about becoming engaged was obviously the happiness that it brought both of us, but also seeing and hearing about the happiness that it brought so many other people too. People we both hadn’t heard from for years came out of the woodwork to congratulate us, which was really fantastic.

Tell us about the vision you had for the mood or style of your wedding…
Refined Italian Countryside meets Amalfi coast. The venue inspired the style of the wedding. Because Redleaf is so stunning, we wanted to keep everything else such as the florals and tablescape simple and sophisticated. The most important elements for us were to ensure that the guests were comfortable and having a great time, amazing food and great music. Redleaf also lends itself to create different areas of interest. This meant that we could take the guests on a journey from one location to another throughout the day. We utilised 4 different areas on the property for ceremony, cocktail hour, lunch and afterparty. As it was a winter wedding and daylight hours fewer, we opted for an earlier ceremony start of 12pm which meant that the party could continue for longer.

We also wanted the wedding to be a classic, timeless, black-tie affair.

Styling elements of an Italian inspired wedding in the countryside.

What was one element you were happy to splurge on?
The music. We think good music is a critical part of making a great party. It is the thing that keeps people interested and involved for the whole wedding. It also tugs on the heart strings and is key to creating an atmosphere of romance and love.

Videography and photography.