This Couple Planned Their Wedding in 7 Days

Wedded in January 2021, Rochele and Emmanuel celebrated an intimate Greek Lebanese wedding with their most cherished. The couple’s wedding day was held at the William Inglis Hotel in New South Wales, exuded refinement, simplicity and most importantly love.

Read on for all the details, from their story to their big day!

How did you meet?

You could say the way we met was serendipitous! We met at the Parramatta lanes festival five years ago, Manoli was working at a Butter pop up (he is one of the owners), and we were introduced by our mutual friend El West. We spoke for a few minutes and then said goodbye (nothing happened at all, no exchange of numbers or anything).

A few months later, Butter in Parramatta opened, and I walked in with some cousins and saw Manoli there, very sure that he would not remember our previous encounter. I did not say anything when I looked at him but in true Manoli fashion, he came right up to me and gave me a big hug, he gave us a bottle of champagne and sat with us all, and we had a great laugh together- from there we exchanged numbers and have been inseparable ever since!

What it was like planning the Wedding?

Our wedding was at the William Inglis Hotel in Warwick Farm, and we had originally planned to wed in September 2020 but had to postpone due to covid- on New Year’s Day 2021. While in Byron Bay, Manoli and I were discussing pushing the wedding forward to a date in January (his sister lives in the ACT and would not be able to come back to Sydney for a while if the Covid restrictions were still in place). I started to call everyone from Alice Mahran, our photographer to St Raphael’s church in Liverpool, to the William Inglis to see if we could make it all work.

We had a date that would work, the 17th of Jan, and we pretty much had this window of opportunity- plan the wedding in a few days or wait for Covid to end – at this point, we just wanted to get married, so we just went for it! From the beginning, I was confident about what I wanted and hired Steph (wedding planner) to help me execute the vision.

We put a Pinterest board together and started working on finding the right vendors who would bring it all to life. It was stressful because the timeframe was so small (7 days) … but it also worked in our favour as a lot of the vendors were free because of Covid. We had 100 people at the wedding. Coming from Lebanese and Greek backgrounds, it’s difficult not being able to invite most of our friends and family but because of this, we also decided on having a day wedding.

In terms of the vision, I had always loved a long full table with beautiful florals and grand table settings with a lot of cutlery and glassware. I consulted with Beth Abood from Dandy Flora, who created stunning arrangements for the table (which everyone also got to take home after our long lunch) and worked with Steph on the table settings and little items on the table like place cards and candles and bonbonnieres which were little candles I ordered in that looked like lemons, I wanted to keep it nice and fresh. I also knew the table setting would be stunning in the Big Barn at the venue. My friend Nicolle from Goldact Events also helped with the gold cutlery and helped us with the hiring of the white Tiffany chairs and linens. All these little elements came together, and the setting was beautiful. It really helped to have Steph there the day before and, on the day, making sure everything came together perfectly!

What do you feel was the most unique part of your wedding?

I had both Mum and Dad walk me down the aisle instead of just my father alone. This was important to me because I respect my parents equally, and I liked the feeling that they were both giving me away at the same time, it was special! My cake was made by my accountant Melissa, she happens to make the best red velvet cake IN THE WORLD, it was exceptional. Most of my family and friends stayed at the hotel after the wedding, so we all had an amazing morning after together by the rooftop pool and just tanned together for the rest of the day, which was so fun.