The creative couple behind The Grounds breathtaking styling in Sydney took their skills to new heights when they planned the most important and lavish event to date: their own wedding.
Therese Moussa and Ramzey Choker, The Grounds’ creative directors, said ‘I do’ at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve in front of 180 guests.
Therese, 35, wore three different dresses including a red gown to the glitzy event that began at Sydney’s State Theatre, where musicians and performers kept guests entertained as they strolled between hundreds of roses.
Attendees were then taken to a pop-up circus tent which was decorated with even more flowers, crystal chandeliers, candles and decadent food tables, before being treated to a fireworks display to top off the night.
The bride spilled all the details of her extravagant nuptials to FEMAIL, revealing her style inspirations, the one thing that was the hardest to organise and why they had a ‘fake ceremony’ before they officially married at midnight,
Therese Moussa and Ramzey Choker, The Grounds’ creative directors, said ‘I do’ at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve in front of 180 family and friends


Therese wore three different dresses including a red gown to the glitzy event that started at Sydney’s State Theatre where musicians and performers kept guests entertained among hundreds of roses
The Grounds has two locations in Sydney; a restaurant dining experience in the heart of the CBD as well as a venue in Alexandria with a cafe, florist, restaurant and bar.
It is famed for its enchanting and extravagantly-styled pop-up spaces with themes ranging from Beauty and the Beast to a Christmas winter wonderland and the colourful Mexican fiesta which is on display now.
Therese and Ramzey put their years of experience styling and planning events at The Grounds to good use to create a dreamy wedding that the bride said was worth every sleepless night.
She said she ‘loved’ using her expertise to plan her perfect wedding in the exact way and style she wanted.
‘Everything that I would love in to do an event, I was able to do. You feel like you’re on cloud nine, it’s such a special, special day,’ she said.
‘It was a fun thing to organise, especially because it was our own. It was so sweet, all of our family and friends were just over the moon. I still get messages saying ‘take me back!’ and asking if I could throw a wedding every year.’


Therese and Ramzey put their years of experience styling events at The Grounds to good use to create a dreamy wedding the bride said was worth all the sleepless nights. She ‘loved’ using her expertise to plan her perfect wedding the way she wanted


Therese walked down the aisle of the State Theatre in the first dress of the evening designed by Serbian brand Vlora&Kaltrina which she said was inspired by the art-deco glam style of the theatre and a medieval goddess
The wedding started in the late afternoon on December 31 at the State Theatre, a historical building Therese has always been in love with.
‘It captures all the right elements of a fairytale you could ever imagine with architecture that is out of this world,’ she said.
‘The first question I asked when I enquired was ‘Can I please change the letters of the marquee sign at the front?’ Then it was a done deal for me.’
Flowers spilled down the foyer stairs while a harpist played dreamy tunes and ribbonists danced around the space as guests filed in and were treated to custom ‘At the Stroke of Midnight’ popcorn boxes to snack on during the show.
Therese walked down the aisle in the first dress of the evening designed by Serbian label Vlora&Kaltrina which she said was inspired by the art-deco glam style of the theatre and a medieval goddess.
Because the couple wanted to be officially married at midnight, they put on a ‘fake ceremony’ on the theatre’s stage in front of an explosion of red roses with Therese and Ramzey’s two best friends as the celebrants and a ring master entertaining and directing the crowd.

Because the couple wanted to get officially married at midnight, they had a ‘fake ceremony’ on the theatre’s stage in front of an explosion of roses with Therese and Ramzey’s two best friends as the celebrants and a ring master entertaining the crowd


At the end of the ‘ceremony’ the ring leader informed the guests they were getting on a bus to go to another mystery location while Therese had her first outfit change of the night an ‘ultimate Jessica Rabbit gown’ custom designed by Nikita Sernack

The couple then travelled in a red mustang to the next destination, where guests were already snacking on canapés, to start the party inside a pop-up Spiegeltent: ‘It’s an old German circus tent. It’s something that Rams and I have loved for years’
‘We needed that element because we were going to shock the crowd by telling them we weren’t getting married just yet. The ring master did the best job with telling a fairytale story. It was pretty magical and funny as well,’ Therese said.
At the end of the ‘ceremony’ the ring leader informed the guests they were getting on a bus to go to another mystery location while Therese had her first outfit change of the night.
She wore an ‘ultimate Jessica Rabbit gown’ custom designed by Nikita Sernack, who is a friend of Therese’s. The ruby-red dress was embellished with sequins and feathers and had matching gloves.
The couple then travelled in a red mustang to the next destination, where guests were already snacking on canapés, to start the party inside a pop-up Spiegeltent which Therese fought tooth and nail to arrange.
‘It’s an old German circus tent. It’s something that Ramz and I have loved for years. We’ve watched so many cool shows in the Spiegeltents and every time I was like, “I’m obsessed with this space, I’d love to decorate it exactly how my inner creative would want to decorate it”,’ she said.
She spent months looking for a place that could host the tent as most parks in Sydney were booked out for the New Year’s fireworks. She appealed to more than 50 different venues before given the green light to place it outside the Entertainment Quarter in Moore Park.

‘We’ve watched so many cool shows in the Spiegeltents and every time I was like, ‘I’m obsessed with this space, I’d love to decorate it exactly how my inner like creative would want to decorate it’,’ Therese said

Instead of a wedding cake, Therese and Ramzey had a Marie Antoinette-inspired dessert table with a macaroon tower, croquembouche, cakes and cupcakes

Therese and Ramzey had their ‘first last’ dance and family and friends made speeches toasting to the happy couple then hit the dance floor as midnight drew closer and closer
Inside there was a live band and performers dancing and roving around huge flower arrangements under sparkling chandeliers.
Invitees feasted on a canapes on a six-metre long grazing table made by The Grounds’ Executive Chef Paul McGarth and his team of ‘culinary magicians’.
‘Our chefs, they’re just crazy amazing. They’re so talented. We had amazing seafood stations and roving canapés, and we had a caviar station as well on the grazing table. It was all very extra,’ Therese said.
Instead of a wedding cake, Therese and Ramzey had a Marie Antoinette-inspired dessert table with a macaron tower, croquembouche, cakes and cupcakes.
Therese and Ramzey had their ‘first last’ dance and family and friends made speeches toasting to the happy couple then hit the dance floor as midnight drew closer and closer.
The bride changed again into a jaw-dropping bespoke Velani gown with a full tiered lace skirt to walk down the aisle.

Invitees feasted on a canapes on a six-metre long grazing table by The Ground’s Executive Chef Paul McGarth and his team of ‘culinary magicians’.

The bride changed again into a jaw-dropping bespoke Velani gown with a full tiered lace skirt to walk down the aisle at the midnight ceremony


The newlyweds got engaged in November 2022 after nine years of dating and Therese started coming up with a concept for the wedding. ‘I mood boarded everything. I think I had eight of the whole wedding broken down, I just went to town’
‘(Nicky Velani) is the queen of doing those big frou-frou dresses and she just nailed it. I felt like a princess in that gown for midnight,’ Therese said.
A breathtaking ceremony was set up outside the tent with a peach curtains, more roses, light-up swans and a firework display for when the pair finally said ‘I do’.
The festivities wrapped up less than two hours later and Therese said she was surprised by how much energy her guests had, joking she was more than ready than them to turn in after a huge day.
‘The event started at 4 and didn’t finish until around 1:30am. Everyone was like, ‘Oh, my God! How is it 1:30? A lot of people didn’t want to go home but I was ready for bed,’ she laughed.
‘Everyone was buzzing on a high. It was just so much fun.’
Therese allowed her guests to take home as many of the flowers as they could carry so they wouldn’t go to waste and gave many bunches to local nursing homes like she does with other events at The Grounds.


While planning, Therese had many sleepless nights trying to get everything organised and working through The Grounds’ busiest time of the year. She doesn’t regret the stress as the day was everything she has dreamed of and more
She said she received many messages from family and friends gushing over their beautiful bouquets in the following days.
The bride remained tight-lipped on how much she and Ramzey spent on the event but said it wasn’t as expensive as it looked because she styled it herself and received discounted or gifted elements from trusted suppliers she knows through work.
The newlyweds got engaged at Shell House Sydney in November 2022 after nine years of dating and Therese started coming up with a concept for the wedding.
‘I mood boarded everything. I think I had eight mood boards with 30 different slides of the whole wedding broken down from the food styling, the cocktail area, the state theatre, the hair looks. I just went to town,’ she said.
‘I love doing mood boards so to me it was so fun. I’d stay up every night like, ‘Right, what’s going to look amazing with my Jessica Rabbit dress? Let’s do big Hollywood waves and red lipstick’.’
In the lead up to the big day Therese had countless sleepless nights trying to get everything organised while working through The Grounds’ busiest time of the year.
However she said she doesn’t regret the stress and sleepless nights as the day was everything she has dreamed of and more.
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