Rory and Penny's wedding at Barnabrow House was as far from their home in Australia as possible, but with Rory a native Cork man, his family and friends were happy to help out. The results? A beautiful wedding, with lots of sweet, homey touches! IG Studio captured the wonderful destination adventure for the happy couple. So lets take a peak...

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We all know planning a destination wedding can be tricky with lots of elements to consider, for today's couple, it was a walk in the park - with a little help from their friends of course. Rory and Penny's wedding at Barnabrow House was as far from their home in Australia as possible, but with Rory a native Cork man, his family and friends were happy to help out. The results? A beautiful wedding, with lots of sweet, homey touches! IG Studio captured the wonderful destination adventure for the happy couple. So lets take a peek...

First off, let's get to know Rory and Penny. They met in 2009 when they both decided to do a little traveling. Rory left Ireland, and Penny left Australia, and they both ended up in Chang Mai, Thailand! They spent three days trekking around Chang Mai before parting ways. But Penny was hoping it wouldn't be the last time she saw Rory... A few days after the trek we said our goodbyes and thought we’d never see each other again, I was heartbroken. However, the stars aligned and six months later I received an email from Rory letting me know that he was in New Zealand and if I was interested he’d love to organise a catch up. Within a few months of receiving that email we decided that we would move to Cork together, and the rest is history.

For the proposal, Rory decided to use another of their adventures to pop the question...Rory and I went on a trip to South Australia in November 2012. Our first stop was in the beautiful Clare Valley and on our first night there Rory took me out to a gorgeous restaurant. After dinner we sat by a little lake and watched the stars, including 5 shooting stars! At midnight Rory popped the question, I had no idea it was coming! It was a beautiful moment, one I’ll never forget. Well five shooting stars has to mean good luck!

Penny's beautiful dress is from Karen Willis Holmes in Australia. I love the sheer top, cap sleeves and delicate belt.

Rory and Penny said I do in the beautiful ceremony room at Barnabrow House adding beautiful flower bouquets tied with satin ribbon to each chair.

How beautiful is the flower and vine garland arch behind them during their ceremony!

Bubbles to send them down the aisle - So cute!

Rory and Penny knew from the get go that they wanted to get married in Ireland, so choosing a venue was their top priority. They wanted to make sure their guests traveling from far away had enough notice to make the trip. The couple enlisted Rory's parents to help with the venue shopping....They contacted us immediately after visiting Barnabrow House and basically told us we’d be mad not to book there. Well, there you have it! Penny says they also enjoyed the fact that they could book the whole venue and have it exclusively for their guests.

Penny lets us in on the secret to planning a wedding from half a world away... Firstly, I received three bride guide books from family and friends as engagement presents, all of which came with timelines setting out when different aspects of the wedding should be completed; these were so helpful and kept me completely on track. Secondly, book your venue as soon as you can. And finally, don’t look and look and look,sometimes you just need to trust your instincts, if it feels right straight up then you should just go with it! Penny makes it sound so simple!

Once their venue was chosen, it helped inform the rest of the decor decisions. They decided to use the countryside location as their inspiration for the day, with a small and intimate gathering, pretty local flowers, delicious local produce, and lots of laughter with their family and friends!

Penny took advantage of lots of small opportunities to spend time with family and friends getting ready for the wedding - which is such wonderful advice in itself! If you can look at the tasks to complete ahead of your wedding as opportunities to see some of your favourite people, what a wonderful thing...I loved spending time making each of the place cards by hand, the process drew my mind to each person who would be attending the wedding. I also had a wonderful time packing each wedding favour into its bag with my mother-in-law Ellen, it was so nice spending that time with her. Our really good friend Elaine,created our beautiful wedding invitations for us. The three of us had a great time sitting in our kitchen in Geelong coming up with ideas and letting the creative juices flow!

What a sweet table plan idea - an up-cycled bicycle wheel with craft paper tags!

To help add to the homey feel at their venue, Penny and her mom created a beauty bar in the powder room. They had bags from Thailand that each guest could fill with lip balm, nail varnish, wipes, nail files and sweets. Lucky guests!

True to form, Penny and Rory decided to add a little extra adventure to their honeymoon. They moved out of their house on one side of Australia, flew to Ireland for the wedding, stopped in Dubai for their honeymoon, and moved into their new house on the other side of Australia! Congratulations, Penny and Rory! And thanks to IG Studio for sharing this piece of their adventure with us. To see more of IG Studio pop over to www.igstudio.ie/blog

The Wedding details: