Britt & Moh

The Local issue is all about finding the gems where you live and making the most of them. Of embracing your community and involving it in every element of your day. And for Britt and Moh? This is exactly what they kept in mind as they planned their day. “We made sure that the majority of our vendors were local to the Yarra Valley, since the wedding had such spectacular views of the valley we wanted to contribute back to the area a little bit.”

And with their story to tell, and beautiful photos by Zoe Louise Photography we invite you to grab a cup of tea and settle in, because this story? It’s romantic, it’s heartwarming and it’s filled with plenty of community love.
Theirs was a story that began at university. “I was on the cheerleading team and he was on the basketball team, we often laugh about how overly stereotypical our meeting was!” explains the bride. She also filled us in on the memory of how Moh popped the big question!

“This probably needs a little back story – Moh and I love having date nights in the city, our first date involved a trip to the Eureka Skydeck, a walk down the Yarra river and finally a movie at Crown Village cinemas. Whenever we want a date night we will almost always find ourselves in the city! The night Moh proposed we’d decided to have dinner in the city since we were both craving a pizza from Gradi (they’re so good!).

After dinner we bought ourselves ice creams and walked along the Yarra, eventually finding a place private to sit. The city looked gorgeous that night, it was the 16th of December so most of the buildings were lit up for Christmas (which is one of my favourite holidays!). We were sitting, looking at how beautiful the city was and talking about all the experiences we’d had together. The next part is a little fuzzy, my brain blacked out the previous 15 seconds when I realised he was proposing, all I remember was thinking to myself earlier in the night “I’m sad that I won’t cry when he proposes because I know he’s going to do it soon” and then immediately bursting into tears when he did propose! It was honestly perfect – a beautiful summer night, a beautiful city lit up for my favourite holiday and a beautiful fiancé to top it all off!”

Britt found her gown at Ferrari Formal and had it altered by Dressmaking and Such so it was just what she wanted. She tells “Three things influenced my choice of dress – the first was my budget, we were trying to do our entire wedding for less than $10,000 so I had wanted to spend less than $1,000 on a dress. The second was our venue, I knew we were having an outdoor wedding so I was really looking for a tea-length dress so I didn’t end up having leaves caught in my dress! And the third was – I wanted it to have some type of sleeve.
Originally I had struggled to find anything in tea-length, I think I only saw maybe 3 dresses that were the length that I wanted. When I tried my dress on it ticked most of the right boxes – it was under $1,000, it was tea-length, it was a perfect fit and it was gorgeous! However, it didn’t have sleeves but I knew logically this had to be the right dress – but it just didn’t feel like THE dress.
I ended up buying it because I loved the way it looked when I twirled around in it, and the design made it very easy to add sleeves to. Despite all this, I still had a small amount of dress regret for months afterwards.
Until I took it to Kristen, who altered my dress. I had no idea what to expect when I left my dress with her, but 6 weeks later when I put my dress on with the newly attached sleeves I was holding back tears – I didn’t think that ‘yes’ moment existed, since I hadn’t had it in the store, but I realised that was because the dress I bought wasn’t the right dress, the altered one I was wearing was the right one!”

Spy that blue handkerchief on Britt’s bouquet? It holds very special meaning. “I did the traditional something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.
Something old – my earrings, I wore them to my debutante ball 8 years earlier.
Something new – my shoes!
Something blue – I’m mentioning this one first because my something borrowed came out of this. My grandfather on my mother’s side passed when I was 18, he had been very sick for a very long time. When pop was alive he was known to always carry around handkerchiefs that my nan had embroidered with his initials, so at his funeral my grandmother handed around handkerchiefs for all of us to take to remember him by. I ended up with a blue handkerchief and eventually decided that whenever I got married, that would be my something blue so that pop could have some part in the wedding.

Something borrowed – I actually didn’t have anything borrowed until the day of my wedding, I couldn’t find anything that fit right that I could borrow. About 3 hours before the wedding started, when I was getting ready, my nan (my late grandfather’s wife) handed me her handkerchief, she thought it would be perfect since it was both borrowed AND blue. She had no idea I was using pop’s handkerchief as my something blue, and it was so perfect that I had the same item from both grandparents. I ended up having them tied around the stems of my bouquet.”

A  grazing table and donut wall were the icing on the cake for guests to dive into, the work of Just4Fun Party Hire Yarra Valley. Britt tells  “I definitely have to give Natalie from Just4Fun Party Hire Yarra Valley a massive shout out because she went to the ends of the earth for us and had a smile on her face the entire time.
We hired Natalie to do the grazing table we had at the wedding – she worked closely with us to ensure that she could meet our dietary requirements – it had been difficult to find a caterer willing to cater to our specific dietary requirement so this was an absolute godsend!
She spent hours setting up the most gorgeous grazing table I have ever seen, and even made little personalised cookies with mine and Moh’s name on them!
She added so many small details that I never would have thought about but made everything just that much more special, I am so grateful to have been able to work with her and would definitely do it again!”

Britt and Moh chose to marry at Britt’s family home, she explains “In the initial planning stages of the wedding we quickly realised that if we wanted to achieve our goal of having a wedding under $10,000 we probably wouldn’t be able to have it at a traditional wedding venue. This was when my parents, who live on a beautiful property in Lilydale that’s situated at the top of a hill, meaning it has the most gorgeous scenic view of almost the entire Yarra Valley, offered their house as a venue for the wedding. The whole time we had been looking at venues we had been trying to find a venue as stunning as my parent’s property, so we were delighted that we were able to have the wedding at the perfect venue!”

Of her walk down the aisle. Britt remembers “My dad walked me down the aisle to a version of “Concerning Hobbits” by Howard Shore that I had edited a little bit – it’s just such a gorgeous piece of music!”

Much of the wedding decor was handmade by Britt & Moh – including the arch they married under. “We DIY’d almost all of the wedding!” explains Britt. “The arch we were married under and the cake topper were made by my dad, my mum made lighting poles out of old paint buckets, tent poles and some flowers, the centrepieces on each table were made by Miranda and myself the night before the wedding, and my grandmother spent a good amount of time cutting burlap to make the table runners out of. Our lawn games (jenga etc) were made by my dad and my oldest brother. Even some of the hanging lights in bottles were hand made from old wine bottles by my mum.

I’m absolutely forgetting some things but my entire family put so much effort into making the day as beautiful and special as possible!”

“Our ceremony was actually a last minute addition! ” admits Britt. “Originally we were just going to get married officially behind the scenes and just have a massive party to celebrate! So I hate to say it but not a whole lot of thought went into the actual ceremony itself! I actually think it only lasted about 15 minutes!”

Those greenery bouquets are incredible don’t you agree? They were put together by Alison Vaughan-Endacott. Britt tells “I’ve always lived in areas with a lot of native Australian trees – in fact my favourite time of the year is when the acacia trees bloom – so I knew I wanted to have bouquets that only had native plants in them. I ended up seeing a few photos of bridal bouquets that were entirely made out of eucalyptus leaves and knew that’s exactly what I wanted my flowers to look like. This also ended up cutting most of the cost out of our flowers, since my florist (who is a close friend) picked all of the leaves from the trees on my parent’s property on the day of the wedding!”

Moh dressed in a classic black suit from Peter Jacksons noting “Less is more, and I’m a simple man. A simple black suit and tie goes a long way. Furthermore, the balance of black and white symbolise harmony and perfect equilibrium, a portrayal of two different beings becoming whole when brought together”.”

Britt and Moh opted for a small wedding party. “Originally we were going to choose three bridesmaids and three groomsmen, but it became clear to us that we each knew of one person who absolutely HAD to be in the wedding party, but then it was hard to decide which people would fill the remaining spots since we both have a lot of close friends. We decided on making our wedding party smaller to make the decision easier (and to hurt less peoples’ feelings!).
Moh had his best friend from highschool, Karim, as his best man and I had my best friend, Miranda, as my maid of honour.”

Britt and Moh were thrilled with their choice of photographer. “Zoe is the most amazing human/photographer! She was extremely professional, and very patient with my family during family photos despite my family being very difficult to work with, she also felt like another guest at our wedding! She made us all feel relaxed and comfortable when she was doing portraits and wedding party photos.
All of the photos she took are gorgeous and capture the atmosphere of the wedding perfectly – she even managed to capture some moments I had forgotten about until I looked back at the gallery!
10/10 would let her capture my wedding again. (Also she’s a dog lover which worked out perfectly since Sammy – the dog – needs constant attention and found a kindred spirit in Zoe!).”

Brides & grooms to be! Britt has very good advice for you! “A lot of people told me this before I got married – make sure you take time to eat!
What they didn’t tell me was that when you sit down to have food you might be too excited/anxious to eat! This happened to me at my wedding – I wish that I had told someone to set my plate of food aside so I could eat it later, because I ended up missing out on eating any food at my wedding!”

A big congratulations Britt and Moh! Thank you for sharing your beautiful day with us! Thank you to you both and thank you to Zoe Louise Photography for sharing today’s story!