Milly & Willo's Relaxed Country Party Wedding

Milly, Willo & son, Archie

When I started to think about our wedding, I really had no idea about what style of dress to look for. Styles I’d liked online and in magazines didn’t suit when I finally tried them on, but I finally found ‘the one’ in Melbourne. My twin sister, our bestie from high school and I were in Brunswick and found ‘the dress’ – it was the Hayley Paige ‘Guindon Dress’ from Eternal Bridal. I wanted a ‘wedding dress’ but didn’t know what it was going to look like; I didn’t want something too predictable. I love the fabric my dress was made from, big bold strips that felt like complete luxury, but still slightly left of field. Most people I know have never seen me in a dress, and I was pretty quick to change from my girlie wedding shoes to my boots on the night – nobody even knew!

Willo looked so handsome and chose a classic three-piece black suit from Hugo Boss, with a white shirt and black and white polka dot tie.

We chose a venue that is literally down the road from us! We have driven past The South Muckelford Public Hall everyday – and have done so most our lives. It is a beautiful one hundred year old stone school building with tall old gums surrounding it. We ended up having too many guests to fit in the hall for the reception, so we hired a marquee for that part of our celebrations and we were married in the hall (standing room only!)

I walked down the aisle to ‘Something’s Got a Hold On Me’ by Etta James. Willo and I both wanted an intimate relaxed ceremony. The whole day was about getting all the people we love together and having a party; we never wanted a stilted, awkward ceremony with tradition or pomp. We wanted to laugh and have fun. We asked the bridesmaids do the Palm Reading together and Willo’s Mum read something meaningful. Apart from that it was all pretty simple.

Dee Brinsmead our celebrant was totally wonderful! She was hilarious, naughty and still totally professional!! We were so glad to find her and have her understand what we wanted – something intimate and really good fun.

We DIY’d the whole thing! My mum and sister busily helped cut and hand stitch the huge backdrop in the hall for the ceremony and cut and thread all the garlands in the marquee. I wouldn’t do it any other way, but it does make for some long evenings. The two dollar shop in town has never sold so many plastic table cloths or coloured straws before!! I bought painters drop sheets for table cloths and we dressed all the tables we’d hired from another hall down the road. It felt like lots of odd elements sometimes, but somehow it all came together to look better than I’d ever imagined!!!

Digging for Fire who did our catering were amazing. They were so easy to work with, they just turned up and made the best food. Everyone raved about good it was; it was super important for us to have awesome vegetarian and meat and to have enough of it – it was great and neither of us had to think about it on the night!

We have a divine little two year old, Archie, and most of our friends and family have children too, so including them all was super important to us. We hired a jumping castle for the weekend which was a total stroke of genius. Oh, and lots of confetti and bubbles as well.Willo runs Chopped (along with two childhood friends) – a rod and custom car festival – and is a member of the South Muckleford Eldorados Car Club, so including all our club cars during the day was really important to us. It was great walking out of the venue for some wedding photos with everyone in the great old cars that the boys drive most days.

We were super lucky to have two photographers for our wedding day. We had Zoe McMahon from Sydney and Cam Grove from Melbourne. We know Zoe very well and knew she would take relaxed, beautiful photos of the day. She takes photos and you don’t even know its happened – magic! I contacted Cam as he had photographed my sister’s wedding five years ago, and I am a fan of his work. He shoots some pretty moody, more unpredictable wedding images and we knew he would get some great shots for us. We now have an enormous collection of photos from the day and it’s the best. The light they both caught is magic.

When we all arrived back from having our photos taken, we were surprised by the most stunning lady singing ‘At Last’ by Etta James with a young guy on double bass. It completely blew us away, and was a great note to kick off the party. Sneaky family made that happen!

A few times we sort of lost direction when organising the wedding – the old Catch 22 of trying to make it work for everyone else! We had to remember it was a day to celebrate us and our love. We pulled it off and our wedding was way, way better than I’d ever expected; everything was divine – especially the love we felt from everyone!