Gayle and Bowl (Joel)

My husband and I are Adelaide ex-pats, and since moving to Melbourne 5 years ago a bunch of friends have also moved over! So with our social circle and family members divided over the two cities we were all so excited to have everyone in one place for a long weekend of celebrations over the Australia Day weekend!

We had around 60 guests, about half of whom joined us the night before for a lovely private banquet dinner at Mankoushe (our favourite local eatery). Then the day after the wedding we hosted an Australia Day BBQ with our own “hottest 100 of all time” which our friends voted for and one friend of ours collated and created a count down of songs for the day. It was great to maximise the catch up time with close friends and family members who live interstate or overseas from each other!

We had been together for over 9 years when Bowl (Joel) finally popped the question in Central Park, NYC! So we just wanted our wedding to be a big celebration about us without being too traditional. We wanted it to be personalised to us but it was also really important to us that our nearest and dearest were all going to have a good time.

Image by Kristoffer Paulsen

Image by Kristoffer Paulsen

Image by Kristoffer Paulsen

Over the whole day and lead up there were a lot of personal touches: We had two of our besties who MC’d the night, one of my best friends shared the role of being our celebrant for the day, which was so special! A friend of ours fancied up his kombi van and drove myself and the ladies to the venue. I had a bunch of friends putting flowers in vases and sand and candles in jars the day before while I was making the bouquets and my soon to be sister-in-law was making the boutonnieres. A photographer friend of ours took photos of us getting ready on the day. Bowl and the best man set up the ceremony decor on the day, and I had a couple of nights with bridesmaids making the jam jar favours and all the black board signage… a lot of team work and help from loved ones really made it all special for us.

Our wedding style was a little on the vintage and rustic side, so when we discovered that The Fairfield Boathouse was available we couldn’t have been happier! We wanted it to be all in one location so that after the ceremony the guests could get straight into mingling and enjoying a drink and a nibble while listening to the french band, La Mauvaise Reputation, we had hired for cocktail hour.
With the beautiful landscape that The Fairfield Boathouse is set in we were able to take a variety of photos during cocktail hour. It was so fun going off in the boats with the bridal party for photos too. With Bowl and I in our boat, champagne in hand and hearing the french tunes floating across the river from the boathouse – it was really nice to have that undisturbed moment and to be able to look out at all our family and friends on the green!

It wouldn’t have been our wedding without dancing and a band to get everyone on their feet. We wanted something fun and different so we booked Babaganoush, a balkan style band, who were perfect! From the time they started people were on their feet.

One of the highlights of the day for me was when Bowl’s speech surprisingly turned into “You’re just to good to be true, can’t take my eyes off of you…” while he put the accordion on and a few friends joined him on guitar, bass and percussion and then the whole room joined in on the chorus “I love you baby, and if it’s quite alright I need you baby…” and so on. Surprises are awesome. He did good!

We were super organised in the lead up to the day, so in the moment we didn’t have to stress and we could actually enjoy ourselves! It’s been over a year already but I going over the photos and writing this all has taken me straight back – so many memories I will treasure for the rest of my life!

 

Ms Gingham says: Congratulations Gayle and Joel! Your wedding looks pretty as a picture!

Gayle says: “As a bride I was super organised and planned as much as I could in the lead up, so that over the whole weekend I could just relax, enjoy myself and be in the moment!”