Mr. & Mrs. Spittoon – Our Vanuatu Wedding!

Firstly I just want to say a huge thank you for all the well wishes before and after the wedding – we had an absolute ball! I really wanted to put up a post about the wedding as there were so many wonderful people and businesses involved alongside the fact we got married in Vanuatu – a place that all destination wedding goers should consider.

I wanted to wait until we got the professional photos back before I wrote this. Going through the 500+ photos involved a few wines and a few tears. It was amazing to re-live the day through the pictures and that’s why I want to give a big shout out to our photographers – Gaga & Ben from Groovy Banana. These guys were absolutely awesome leading up to the wedding, wonderful on the day and the quality of the photos really speak for themselves. Thank you guys so much!

The Destination

I have to admit, a lot of people were shocked when I told them where we were getting married. It’s safe to say virtually everyone thought it would be at a winery here in WA or back home in NZ. Yet we decided to completely jump ship and opt for a destination wedding. Mr. Spittoon and I have been travelling/working away from home for over 10 years now – so the idea of ticking off another new destination, having a holiday and having a wedding and honeymoon abroad seemed perfect.

We looked at various destinations including Fiji and Rarotonga but ended up deciding on Vanuatu – it seemed to suit what we wanted more so than the other destinations. And before you ask, Vanuatu is not in Hawaii (a lot of people seem to think that!), it’s in the South Pacific – a 3 hour flight from Brisbane or Auckland.

Of course we also had to research the wine situation and costs in each country. Many hotels in Fiji wouldn’t allow BYO and as you can imagine, I was very particular about what wines I wanted to drink on my wedding day!
Everyone expected that Mr. Spittoon and I would get married at a winery but instead we decided to tick another country off our travel bucket list – Vanuatu! It was absolute paradise getting married at @warwickvanuatu in Port Vila. This was the view from our room”

The Wedding Venue

Once we knew Vanuatu was the location, we then had to decide where to have it. After looking at different Vanuatu wedding venues, different wedding packages and emailing nearly all the hotels in Port Vila (Vanuatu’s capital) we decided on the Warwick Le Lagon – and I am so happy we did. The resort was family friendly, had an absolutely mean breakfast, the pool had a swim up bar and it was right on the beach. Many mornings we would take the free kayaks, sail boats or snorkelling gear out to explore.

What I also love about the Warwick is they have a special ‘wedding deck’ over the water which was an absolutely breathtaking spot to get married.

We were dealing with the lovely Katie and Eric from the Warwick who bent over backwards to help us organise the day and ensure everything ran smoothly on the day – these guys were absolutely priceless and they did an amazing job with the resources they had on hand.

On our second day at the resort (we arrived 6 days prior to the wedding) we were greeted by management one morning to find out we were being upgrade to an absolutely fabulous room right on the water’s edge. Yes we were totally spoilt and it just added to the wedding excitement. Mr. Spittoon and I were absolutely smitten!

The Wedding Ceremony

Wow what a day! It still brings a huge smile to my face thinking about it – so beautiful and so special to have 30 of our family and close friends with us. The night before the wedding we went on a Sunset Cruise around Port Vila with everyone – it was a great way for everyone to mingle and get to know each other. I just remember looking round thinking how lucky we were and thank fully I got out many of my tears that night – happy tears of course!

The beauty of organising a wedding in Vanuatu through a resort is that they take care of a lot of organisation for you. You can have as much or as little input as you want. I did take a few of my own decorations over for the reception such as the hand drawn signs (to match our save the dates and invites), cake topper, seat tags, personalised straws, kids goodie bags and we took our Polaroid camera over too.

The ceremony on the deck was fantastic. We did use an outside supplier for the chairs. In the end we got some white Tiffany chairs from Samara at Evrisamting who also provided the mason jars with flowers in to line the aisle.

After the ceremony (swooon!) and once we were pronounced husband and wife with bottles of Louis Roederer NV popping in the background we enjoyed champas and canapés on the deck. The bubbles we took over in our suitcases – we had 9 bottles which was plenty for the lot of us. The canapés provided by the Warwick were delicious. We had; Kokoda in shooters (my fave!), prawn avocado nori rolls with wasabi and soy, rare roast beef w pickles & Dijon, kumala chips sun-dried tomato and cream cheese dip, grilled chorizo w garlic & lemon yoghurt, sticky pork & coriander wontons.

Our flowers were by Island Flowers Vanuatu and my hair and make-up was done by Body and Soul.

The Dress

Everyone has been asking about the dress so I just had to put a section in for this! I got my stunning grown from Raffinato Bridal in Leederville. I went with my mum and we had a ball trying on dresses and were even given sparkling wine to sip on while we did! Niamh was an absolute star helping us out.

My dress, funnily enough was by New Zealand designer Kelly Lin Couture – I found this out after I had fallen in love with it. It was meant to be!

Also I designed my shoes through Shoes of Prey – I wanted a small wedge with a pop of colour.

The Wedding Wine

So there wasn’t a lot of wine involved in our wedding – everything we drank on the day we brought over with us. Thankfully nothing broke in our luggage! My family in NZ brought some of the bottles for us so we were all within our limits coming into the country. Here is what we had:

• Billecart-Salmon Blanc de Blanc – I thought this would be a great bottle for us girls getting ready and yes we were a tad unorganised and ended up enjoying this with some Bluebird potato chips. I am all class!
• Louis Roederer NV – This is one of Mr. Spittoon and my favourite NV’s – it just goes down so well and I think our family and friends really enjoyed it too
• Louis Roederer Cristal 2004 – This one is particularly special to us, as it was this exact champas Mr. Spittoon had with him when he propped the question. We met in 2004 so it all makes sense really. We enjoyed this as we had our wedding photos, haha we weren’t going to share it around 30 people that’s for sure!

Prior to the wedding and leaving Perth we popped a bottle of Ace of Spades (read my tasting note) and a bottle of 2002 Cristal Rosé (read my tasting note) that I have been holding onto for sometime now. We had this just before we went to the airport and my goodness – hands down, it’s one of the best I’ve ever had in my life. Words can’t explain how amazing this champas is!

I’d have to say my most craziest bride-to-be moment would have to be taking two Plumm Glassware flutes with me all the way from Perth to enjoy our Cristal out of on our wedding day!

The Wedding Reception

After our photos we arrived back to the reception to a sparkler entrance (we sourced these from the fireworks guy in Vanuatu!) and we had cocktails in coconuts with our own little personalised straws. We opted for the marquee on the beach for the wedding reception and it looked beautiful. As we were a small group we decided on one big long table with Mr. Spittoon and I at the head.

The reception was fabulous – the food put on by the Warwick was delectable. I ate at least a half a dozen oysters so I was one happy lady. Mr. Spittoon and the boys had been fishing a couple of days prior to the wedding and Mr. S caught a very decent size wahoo, which the chef actually cooked up to be served at the reception. Such a special touch!

For the wedding cake we opted for cupcakes, we went for two types; white chocolate passionfruit mud cake and jaffa choc orange mud cake. These were divine!!! I am so glad there were some leftover as the next day we had a cupcake and cocktail session one afternoon – bliss!

Our lego cake topper was from Heart of Bricks on Etsy and I love it – my bride mini lego resin was equipped with a wine glass and the groom was holding a bottle. Plus we had our little cats on there too #crazycatpeople

At the reception we didn’t have any wine, just beer and cocktails which went down well with our guests – and of course non-alcoholic drinks.

I did the music on my iPod, we had a dance floor and the rest is history! After the wedding we moved over to Mangoes Resort for a week as our honeymoon – plenty of cocktails, reading and swimming! You can read about our Port Vila food and wine adventures here. And for more highlights from the wedding, look up my #mrsspittoon hashtag!