At this Sydney wedding, guests dined and danced at The State Library

“I’ll always remember that feeling of being so loved.”

Here at Fashion Journal, we make no secret of our love of weddings. We’re suckers for a bit of romance and have a soft spot for weddings that do things differently, whether it’s a Las Vegas elopement, a tropical getaway or a Town Hall celebration.

Kirana Cahyani and Jeremy Widjaja first met through friends in Sydney, and bonded over a mutual love for music and shared hatred for vegetables. Their relationship blossomed during Covid and after four years of dating, they’d mutually decided to get married and go ring shopping together.

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The actual proposal happened later, while on a trip to Melbourne. “We had a nice dinner, went for drinks after, and he asked to walk around one of my favourite parks at night and popped the question,” Kirana says.

When it came to wedding planning, the couple knew they wanted an autumn wedding, held in Sydney’s CBD. They soon settled on The Mint for their ceremony and The State Library for the reception. Finding the right wedding dress, however, was no easy feat. “I was scrolling on my phone every single day trying to choose something. I didn’t exactly know what I wanted,” Kirana remembers.

Eventually, she landed on two dresses: a strapless gown from Lola Varma, and a silk dress from Indonesian label, ANW. Cutting it finely, her ceremony dress almost didn’t arrive in time. “It was somehow held up for longer at the airport and there were just delay after delay in both Indonesia and Sydney,” she says. In a stroke of luck, Kirana and Jeremy drove to the shipping warehouse the day before the wedding to retrieve it.

The couple were joined by 50 of their closest friends and family on the day, with both Kirana and Jeremy’s parents flying in for the occasion. ” I was so nervous the night before… but the day ended up being perfect.”

Fashion Journal: Hi Kirana and Jeremy! Congratulations on your beautiful wedding. How did the two of you meet?

Kirana: I had just moved to Sydney in 2019 for uni and met some new friends, and Jeremy was there. From the start, we’ve always thought we had similar style and interests, so we grew close. One of the main reasons we started hanging out was because we found out we liked the same artist who was scheduled to tour in Sydney. We planned to go together but it was cancelled due to Covid.

It started platonically – we were just friends for over two years before we officially dated. I think Covid was a big turning point in our relationship. We started meeting more often and at one point, when everyone had to stay within a strict five-kilometre radius of their home, Jeremy said he would pay the $1,000 fine so we could hang out (if that’s not love, I don’t know what is!).

The engagement wasn’t a surprise, as I designed how I wanted my ring to look months prior, but I never knew how, where, and when he would propose. In May last year, I tagged along on Jeremy’s work trip to Melbourne and he proposed while we were there. It was the best time. We had a mini celebration right after with a gelato and a photobooth.

How did you approach planning the wedding?

Kirana: We definitely took our sweet time. We didn’t want the planning to be rushed but we also didn’t want to dive straight into it right after our engagement. We only knew that we wanted to hold it in autumn.

We were very relaxed in the beginning, and overall the planning period only took six months. We had the moodboard, we knew exactly what we wanted and what we didn’t, but both of us can be quite lazy and erratic with executing things, so we figured we’d need a hand.

Luckily, a friend referred me to Emma, who we ended up hiring as our wedding planner. She was a godsend. We hit it off so well, and she completely understood our ideas. The next six months went very smoothly.

Venue searching was one of the easiest parts, I knew early on I wanted to have it smack bang in the city, somewhere with special architecture, so the State Library felt like the perfect choice. We locked that in before anything else.

Tell me about the day itself. How many guests did you have?

Jeremy: Our ceremony was at The Mint in Sydney. Kirana and I have a shared love for cities – we just love the tall buildings, the busy streets, the hustle-and-bustle, and we wanted our venues to capture this feeling. Kirana’s favourite ‘suburb’ in Sydney is Martin Place.

After checking out a few venues, The Mint ticked all the boxes for us. It had beautiful sandstone walls that gave it a vintage charm, but was still surrounded by the energy of the city. We also wanted to keep our wedding intimate and small, so we invited 50 of our closest friends and family for both the ceremony and reception.

We didn’t want a floral arch for the altar, so we decided to do a wall with just one big floral arrangement that would act as the arch. The wall was painted in Kirana’s favourite colour, and that ended up being a beautiful backdrop moment for family and friends’ portraits.

The florals for our ceremony and reception were by Sophie from Muck Floral. The whole process was so pleasant and smooth sailing, the end result and the execution was beautiful. We also requested two special bouquets that we wanted to give to our parents to honour them during the ceremony.

What did you two do for the reception? 

Kirana: After the ceremony at The Mint, we walked to the State Library. When Jeremy and I were just walking, everyone strolling past us kept congratulating us and that was definitely one of the highlights. It felt so special that strangers were also celebrating with us.

When we arrived at the library, we took some photos inside the iconic dome, which was such a surreal experience; it was just us there in this huge space. I remember looking at Jeremy and both of us just had this stunned look and the whole setting was just insanely beautiful.

All of the guests were given Margaritas on arrival, there was a lot of eating, drinking and dancing. My parents’ beautiful speech in particular meant so much to me, as they weren’t really fluent in English and I was told by my sisters afterwards that they were practising for days before the wedding. We also did our re-entrance walking down the main staircase to Addison Rae’s ‘Diet Pepsi’. It was perfect.

Kirana, your dress looked beautiful! How did you find it?

Kirana: The dress was the hardest thing for me. Out of the six months of planning, I think the dress occupied five of those. I was scrolling on my phone every single day trying to choose something. I didn’t exactly know what I wanted, I just knew what I didn’t want.

I finally decided on two dresses for the ceremony and reception. I went with Lola Varma for the reception dress. They were actually the first and the only place in Sydney I went for a fitting. Courtney was the best and the fittings were always so fun. I ended up going with a two-piece look. Both Courtney and I thought the bubbly skirt would be so fun to dance in, and we were right! My kitten heels were from Anonymous Copenhagen and Tracy, my Maid of Honour, lent me her Bottega Veneta Jodie.

For the ceremony dress, I went with an Indonesian brand called ANW, which is known for its textile manipulation. I wasn’t planning on doing a different dress for the ceremony initially but I decided to reach out to ANW while I was in Jakarta and they were able to set up a fitting. I met Astrid and Ilaine, and they instantly got my vision and customised parts of the dress to exactly how I wanted. This was all done in less than two months.

The dress is an asymmetrical shirred silk dress with a train and scattered floral embroidery on a sheer fabric. It was so beautiful and felt extra special since I was wearing something made by Indonesian designers.

I also heard that the dress arrived the day before the wedding?

Kirana: I kept thinking that the months of planning went by so smoothly, I had this irrational fear of it being too easy. Alas, I jinxed it. My dress was somehow held up at the airport and there was delay after delay in both Indonesia and Sydney. For about three weeks, I was in an email thread with 20 people, all wondering where my dress was and when it was going to arrive.

Long story short, the day before my wedding (which was also my birthday) Jeremy and I drove an hour away to a shipping warehouse and the staff were super helpful – they manually searched and luckily found my dress! Apparently, since it hadn’t gone through sorting, it wasn’t meant to be delivered for another week, but they made an exception since my wedding was the next day.

I tried it on in the hotel (which was basically my first time ever trying it). I did have a plan B dress that I got last minute in case this one didn’t arrive, but it thankfully did and it fit like a glove.

What was your beauty look like on the day?

Kirana: I reached out to Maggie Wu. We have a lot of mutuals and she did my friends’ makeup for their weddings, so I fully trusted her. I’m not used to getting my makeup done, so I just showed Maggie references and let her do the rest.

Another friend recommended Henny Im who ended up doing my hair for both the ceremony and reception. Maggie and Henny made the whole prep time super fun and relaxed. I also had the cutest manicure from Ladybug Nails.

What about Jeremy’s outfit?

Jeremy: My suit was from Mawson Ossa in Sydney. About a year ago, I needed a suit to attend a friend’s wedding. I’ve always been quite particular about how my clothes fit (especially suits), and after struggling to find a tailor who understood what I was after, I came across Mawson Ossa on Instagram and decided to book a consultation.

From the start, Nate was amazing and we immediately clicked. He understood my vision, and the specific aesthetic and fit I was looking for. After that first experience, I knew I would be back for my own wedding.

For my suit, I had always wanted a dark brown, double-breasted suit with pleated trousers. Nate brought my vision to life and the final result was even better than I had imagined. My shoes were a pair of dark brown oxfords from Morjas and I wore my vintage 1940s Vacheron Constantin watch, which I bought on our first trip to Japan – one of our favourite memories together.

What did you do for food and entertainment? Did you have a cake?

Jeremy: After our ceremony, there were some canapés and drinks from the venue. For the food at the reception, we worked together with Laissez Faire, the catering partner of the State Library, and tailored the menu to our specific tastes. They were so easy to work with and accommodating of any feedback or changes we requested.

As Kirana said, since we’re not the biggest fans of vegetables, we had considered banning all vegetables but we felt bad for our guests, so we had to include some. Our cake was made by Vege Mamma – dark chocolate fudge cake with dulce de leche and buttercream. It was really good.

For entertainment, we had Brazilian guitar duo Steyer Brothers, playing the most beautiful samba and jazz music at our ceremony. It really made our ceremony extra special and memorable.

We had the amazing Mary as the DJ at our reception. She had previously DJ’ed at two of our friends’ weddings and we loved her song choices and playlist. We had our first dance to ‘Be That Easy’ by Sade, which we were both very nervous about and had to practice the dip way too many times.

How did you capture the wedding? 

Kirana: Tom was the first person we locked in as soon as we confirmed our venue. He’s one of my favourite photographers and I’ve followed his account, Thomasjpg, for years before he started doing weddings. Before we got engaged, I saw Tom’s Instagram story saying he was fully booked for 2026. The moment I got the ring, I decided to cold email him anyway.

It was like Christmas for me when he replied the next morning, saying he’d make it work, knowing full well he had to fly back to Melbourne the next morning for another wedding!

I sent through my moodboard which had a lot of Tom’s work in it, so my brief was pretty much to do whatever he wanted. I loved the idea of close-up photos of the guests, of objects at our wedding, rather than posed, perfect shots of us, and he truly did the most.

Did you have any other fun or unique quirks about your wedding?

Kirana: I do graphic design and have always thought of doing my own stationery for my wedding. I thought it would be fun to be my own client but it did have its hectic moments. In the end, though, I was glad I did it and it was one of my favourite memories. Being able to see my work tangibly at my own wedding, having people interact with it and hearing compliments about it made me feel over the moon. That’s my baby there!

Another funny thing about the wedding was our good friend Edward, who was also the MC for the day, had just bought Meta glasses and ended up recording bits of the wedding from his POV, which were fun to look back on.

Looking back, what was the best part of your day?

Kirana: It was so special to be surrounded by our closest family and friends, especially since both my and Jeremy’s families had to fly from overseas for our wedding. I was so nervous the night before that I only slept for two hours but the day ended up being perfect.

An hour after the reception ended, Jeremy and I walked around the city and went for a late-night Yochi sesh. Strangers again congratulated us and I’ll always remember that feeling of being so loved and just having so much love.

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