Mick and Hannah

Mick and I met back in 2004 in French class at the University of Melbourne. I remember Mick having long hair, wearing a scrunchy and thinking he was rather hip. We were friends for five years before we fell in love. It was Mick’s culinary skills and a few bicycle dates that swept me off my feet. We fell in love with Semara Uluwatu while staying at Mick’s parents house in Bali last year. I have always loved the beach so it was the perfect location for a Bali wedding and great way for us to meet Mick’s extended family who live in Indonesia. Mick proposed in Ha Long Bay Vietnam and chose a pretty Ceylon sapphire art deco ring himself.

In our travels, I was inspired to pursue my dream of studying textile design and enrolled into a course at RMIT upon our return. Throughout the course, I experimented with different ideas to enable me to launch my first design label. In 2011, Hannmaid was born. I wore a Lisa Ho dress for the ceremony and then changed into a Sass & Bide party dress for the evening. My good friend Viviana from Colombia did her hair and make up. She was amazing, it took her 20 minutes to do that beautiful braid! The groomsmen and groomswoman received a pair of Hannmaid cufflinks for their wedding gift and wore a Jack London shirt and short ensemble.

We chose the song La Vie En Rose – the Nataly Dawn version for our wedding song.

Our friend adapted the Dinosaur reading to reflect our relationship. Mick was the shy dinosaur and I was the colourful other dinosaur. Imogen adapted the beautiful song Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros as a reading. The reggae band played a beautiful version of “Amazing” during the ceremony and all of our family and friends sang. Our friend Bob became a celebrant for the special day – he was perfect for the job. It was important to us to have someone who had known us for a long time to marry us.

Having both lived in Europe, we had friends travel from all parts of the world to our wedding. During the ceremony, our bridesmaids did an introduction in Indonesian (Selamat Datang), French (Enchante) and Aussie (G’Day). It was a nice touch for an international wedding.

Mick and his Dad sang a beautiful version of What a Wonderful World at the reception. Our wedding dance was quite modern and was a mix of three songs; 
Mazzy Star – the waltz, Eagle Rock – Rock and then La Bomba – salsa. We had a blast.

Images by Gusde Photography

Ms Gingham says: An idyllic tropical location, Bali has my heart. What a beautiful wedding.

Hannah says: “We are a city boy and a country girl who have ridden in tandem across the world. I fell in love with Mick’s passionate pursuit of the childhood nostalgia that comes with travelling by bicycle. He found a vintage ladies touring bike in England when riding in Europe for a Summer which he brought home to Melbourne. We shared our weekends together cycling along the banks of the Yarra with the sun’s warmth on our backs. In a time where contemporary city life kills you slowly on a daily basis, cycling acted as an ally to calm the mind and fill the void.”