Brooke and Darren met on a beach in Chile and, almost 12,000 kilometres from home, soon realised they had grown up just a few blocks from each other in Melbourne, Australia.
When they returned home they went on their first date they headed out to a local restaurant.
“After one too many cocktails with dinner, I told Darren that I would marry him one day… And it turned out I was right!” Brooke, 34, says.
Four years later, Darren, 35, took Brooke back to that same restaurant and popped the question at the same table where they had sat on their first date.
“We knew that we wanted to get married in Bali overlooking the ocean, so we flew over to look at venues shortly after we got engaged,” Brooke says.
They fell in love with Khayangan Estate for their destination wedding on June 23, 2017.
Seventy-five friends and family flew over for the oceanfront celebrations at the luxurious venue in Uluwatu, Bali.
Brooke says the majority of their vendors were local, but they also got their close friends involved in the day, “including our incredible photographer, Chad Brown, who was one of our oldest friends and flew in from the UK especially for the occasion,” Brooke says.
“The day of the wedding was everything that we had hoped it would be and more. The weather was amazing, the venue was exactly as we had pictured it and the party carried on long into the night.”
Photos courtesy of Chad M Brown Photography.
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“We absolutely loved the split-level design of the property, which allowed us to have completely separate areas for the welcome drinks, ceremony, cocktail hour and reception,” the bride says of their destination wedding venue. “The various villas, infinity pools and spectacular gardens were just the icing on the cake.”
In keeping with the beach theme, bride Brooke chose a mini-dress with detachable skirt that took her easily from day to night.
“We dreamt up the most incredible wedding day that we could possibly imagine and then we made our dream come true on the clifftops of Uluwatu, Bali,” Brooke says of their destination wedding.
Brooke urges future brides to take a moment throughout their wedding day to stop and take it all in. Never again will all of our favourite people in the world be in the same place at the same time, and you can’t possibly appreciate that enough on the day,” she says.