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The Offbeat Bride: Heather, High School English Teacher
Her offbeat partner: Macca (or Tom), Boutique Chocolate Salesman
Date and location of wedding: Fair Harvest Permaculture Farm, Margaret River, Western Australia — December 19, 2015
Our offbeat wedding at a glance:
Fun, love, and colour were our goals. The invite asked guests to wear something they love and they did, from ponchos to velvet dresses, and Converse shoes to silk magenta op-shop numbers.
Tell us about the ceremony:
Our celebrant, Anita Revel, was amazing — she totally got us. The ceremony was really relaxed. Our friend Pip read The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
I walked down the aisle to “Handle With Care” by The Traveling Wilburys. my family used to dance around the living room to that song when I was a child. We were married under a wooden arch that my friends (on whose property we were married) built for us. The aisle was made out of flowers from my garden that I had dried with a dehydrator.
Tell us about your reception:
We wanted a big music festival-style party. We had wood-fired pizzas, a vintage caravan wine bar, and a local Combi Coffee van pumping out espresso martinis. We had a bouncy castle, hula hoops, and hacky sacks.
Everything was colourful: the picnic rugs, the cushions I covered in recycled saris, and the flowers from our garden in different coloured glass jars. People sat around and talked and laughed and then danced until well after midnight.
Many of our friends performed as their gift to us. We prioritised supporting local businesses as much as possible. We live in a small town and we knew that if we were going to be spending the kind of money it takes to have a big wedding, that we wanted as much of that to go back into our local economy as possible.
What was your most important lesson learned?
Budget DIY weddings are really hard to pull-off. My mum made my dress and the cake, I did all the decorations, we handmade our favours (sun catchers), we had “festival style” catering which was way less expensive, etc. It was a huge cost-saving undertaking.
The best life-saver I can recommend is having people organised to set up on the day that you know you can trust and who understand what you are trying to do. I had the most amazing set-up helpers: my dad, my brother and two ex-students. They knew what to do and how to do it and I didn't have to worry about anything.
Vendors
- Photographer: Folklore Photography
- Celebrant: Yes I Do Weddings
- Dress: bride's mum
- Venue: Fair Harvest Permaculture Farm
- Mobile bar: Mable and Co.
Gallery
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That dress is amazing!
Handmade, too. So in love!
Thanks! We got a vintage (1940s) pattern from etsy because… well viintage stuff suits hips and boobs a bit better! I loved my dress.
There is so much joy in these pictures it overwhelms in the most amazing way. Congratulations! I think if I were to do a wedding now instead of in my past, I would want one just like this. 🙂
Oh my! I know. I love these photos so hard, our photographer was amazing. I didn’t want heaps of posed stuff, we just said: post lots of reception shots and she just delivered all the joy we saw all day. I couldn’t believe how well they turned out!
Loving the mum-made dress. I think it’s the most gorgeous dress I’ve ever seen on OBB.
I will tell my mum, she’ll be tickled pink!
The bloke and I really dig this wedding! We will be honeymooning in Yallingup because we love that region so much.
Where did you get the suits from, please? They are pretty great and I love the shirts, too!
And your mum is bloody talented, that dress is amazing <3
I got the suits from studiosuits.com We got the linen ones. You send all the measurements (and there are LOTS) to them and they tailor the suits for you. They’re made in India. We ummed and arrrred about the ethics of it but in the end we decided that any other suits we were going to be able to afford would be made in a 3rd world country anyway and this way the money was going direct to the Indian company, not just lining some western pocket. They were lovely and not very expensive in the scheme of thintgs… about 240 AU each.
Oh and the shirts are from hawes + curtis. I am so glad people love my dress as much as I do. 🙂
That is awesome, thank you so much! Totally understand about the ethics thing- sometimes it’s really hard to do the ‘right’ thing given our own budget restraints, but at least trying is better than doing nothing 🙂 we will check them out, thanks again! x