Better late than never … that goes for our wedding and posting this blog post almost a year late! Go grab a cup of tea this is going to be a long one. I want to document every last detail so that I can look back in years to come.
It’s official, we can finally say we are husband and wife! It took us 13 years but we finally did it. It really is our greatest adventure yet.
On the 14th of November last year, we finally got hitched in beautiful Western Australia accompanied by some of our closest family and friends. So 13 years, 5 months and 15 days after Shaun asked me to be his girlfriend, we are now officially married. I’m a wife!!
As you can probably expect from us by now, it was not your average wedding. We wanted to focus on the things important to us … being chilled out and being outdoors. Nothing fancy, no frills, just us having fun. That being said we opted to get married here in Australia and not back home in Guernsey. Unfortunately, that did mean that most of our friends and siblings couldn’t make it to Australia but we had our parents there and we did it our way.
The preparation
To say Shaun and I are laid back is probably an understatement. Our apparent lack of wedding prep even had our mums call a secret meeting behind our backs a few days before the wedding to suss out if there was actually going to be a wedding! To be honest there was really little to plan. With only 10 guests attending our very relaxed wedding, there was little to organise.
The most stressful part was actually finding a wedding dress. Having a 3 year long engagement, I had built up a solid Pinterest board so I thought I knew what I wanted. However, it turns out I hate wedding dresses! 10 year old me wouldn’t have believed it!
A friend and I ventured to a couple of stores and I tried on a few dresses … I felt so uncomfortable. I just didn’t feel like myself; like I was dressing up trying to be someone else. Plus the fact that the wedding would be in the bush. I knew I would end up barefoot running around in the dirt all day sweating in near 40 degree heat. Keeping that in mind I took to second-hand websites to try and get my hands on a Grace Loves Lace dress. I actually preferred this method of shopping as you can see photos of the dresses on real people plus the price of wedding dresses is ludicrous. Anyway, I took the plunge and purchased a second-hand dress from Still White which got shipped over from New Zealand. It was in perfect condition and fit like a glove. I wasn’t sure I was in love with it due to the high neckline but in hindsight, it was absolutely perfect!
Jodie | Grace Loves Lace
Photo credit: Sebastian Merle Photography
The perfect dress for the forest
The transport
Choosing the wedding car was simple, there was only one option … a VW Kombi. This wasn’t any old kombi I had a stretch kombi. I kept this as a surprise from everyone and they were stoked when it turned up, especially my dad. The journey to the venue was so fun. I had a playlist of my favourite 90s tracks, champagne and family to share the ride.
Mum, Jo, Dad
Jodie, dad and the WV kombi Photo credit: Sebastian Merle Photography
We arrived at the venue and of course Shaun wasn’t ready. No surprise there. I had to duck down to hide from him whilst mum and dad were on lookout.
Yes, Shaun is on a campground blow drying his hair using our car second battery!
The ceremony
We wanted to have our ceremony in a place that felt comfortable for us. It had to be outdoors. There were only two options … the beach or the forest. We knew we wanted to camp so we opted for a forest location for both the ceremony and reception within reach of a beach.
Our ceremony was in the middle of a gorge in beautiful Western Australia surrounded by kookaburras and kangaroos followed by an afternoon of eating, drinking and laughing. And of course, we camped. Well, we amped it up a notch and ‘glamped’.
I chose to ask both my mum and dad to ‘walk me down the aisle’, or in this case the bush hiking track. I thought it would be a nice gesture for them both to be a part of that special moment. The ceremony was located about a 10 minute walk through the gorge and I wanted this time to be spent with both of them. Our last walk as a Toms family.
Boomerang Gorge, Yanchep National Park Photo credit: Sebastian Merle Photography
I was so excited walking down the aisle. Although we did have to waste some time after trying to get the right music to play … finally, my song came on. I chose a saxophone version of my favourite song, ‘Wherever you will go’ by The Calling. Just as I approached the final corner, as if on cue, the kookaburras started laughing. I made the final corner and saw Shaun and the beautiful setup with my family waiting. It was an incredible heart-racing moment.
The heart-racing moment seeing your future-hubby just before you say ‘I do’ Photo credit: Sebastian Merle Photography Styling: House of Primrose
In the forest
We had sat down together a few days before to write our own vows. It’s so incredibly hard to cut it down to just a few sentences. How do you sum up a lifetime of love for someone in a few short sentences. I didn’t want to do the ‘I vow …’ and definitely not ‘honour and obey’. Instead, we both opted for meaningful heartfelt declarations of love. In that moment of reading the vows, it felt like we were the only ones there.
Our wonderful celebrant taking us through the ‘I dos’ Celebrant: Marry Me Melissa Photo credit: Sebastian Merle Photography
As part of the ceremony we included a blending of sand. Traditionally this is to symbolise blending both bride and groom together with the grains of sand becoming inseparable. We took this an extra step and asked my mum to smuggle some Guernsey sand into Australia. We blended the Guernsey sand with sand from our favourite beach here in Perth, Leighton Beach in North Fremantle. To us, this represented where we are from and all the adventures we have taken to get to where we are now.
Blending sand ceremony
Blending of sand … all over the floor! Photo credit: Sebastian Merle Photography
Whilst we signed the marriage certificate we played another one of our favourite songs ‘Your Smile’ by Ben Merito (more on this later). And finally, when everything was official we played our celebratory song ‘Best day of my life’ by American Authors.
Signing the marriage certificate
That moment
Boomerang Gorge, Yanchep National Park
That just married kiss
Boomerang Gorge
Personal touches
As you are probably aware, Shaun and I are creative souls and we wanted our wedding to truly represent us. I got very arts and craftsy and made the macrame hanging, my ‘bouquet’, the hand held paper fans, calligraphy on agate slice place names and even Shaun’s wedding ring! I will admit that I didn’t intend to make his ring however the day before the wedding his ring still hadn’t arrived so I knocked one up that afternoon! My earrings and other rings I wore were also made by myself and a dreamcatcher ring from my friend’s jewellery line, Leigh&Leigh.
The reception styling
The photoshoot
With both of us being absolute beach babes we knew we wanted to get to the beach at some point. We opted to have our photoshoot at the beach which also doubled up as some time together. Seb our photographer drove us to nearby Yanchep Lagoon. I had asked Seb if we could do some cool shots with smoke bombs. It wasn’t something he had done before but he jumped straight on it and the photos looked amazing.
Golden hour
Our happy place!
Photography: Sebastian Merle Photography
Casual stroll
Smoke bombs on the beach
Photographer: Sebastian Merle Photography
One of my favourite photos of the day
Beach walks
Yanchep Lagoon
The reception
For our reception, we just wanted to relax and have time to catch up with our family and friends that we hadn’t seen in a few years. Predictably the weather was roasting hot. Whilst it was comfortable for us our poor family was suffering. We all took shade under the awning of our campervan (of course Big D had to feature on our big day).
Shaun surprised me with one of our favourite local artists, Ben Merito. I don’t know how he did it because I had tried to book him myself as a surprise for Shaun a year before! Ben Merito was the first local gig we went to in Perth and we have loved his music ever since. We spent the afternoon sipping on Pimms whilst listening to Ben’s original music.
The incredibly talented Ben Merito
First dance to Ben Merito
Pretending it’s not 40 degrees
Cheers
Shaun and his dad and step-dad
Up to no good
Cheers
Not so private smooches
The food
For our evening meal, I asked Yanchep Inn to put on a BBQ. We opted for grazing boards to start followed by BBQ crayfish and steak and lots of salads. It was perfect after a long day in the sun. Shaun did a speech but everyone else chickened out.
The beautifully styled table by House of Primrose and the Chill Out Tent by Nomadika
After dinner, it was unusually cold and unfortunately that morning the fire-ban had been put in place. We had planned an evening dancing around the fire pit roasting marshmallows. Instead, we ate, drank and chatted all night in the ‘chill out’ tent which was dec’d with rugs and cushions on the floor. It was great to be able to sit and catch up on the last few years with our family over a few celebratory drinks.
Dinner under a stary sky
Shaun’s speech
Photographer: Sebastian Merle Photography
The wedding cake
We didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a fancy cake when our favourite sweet treat was available just down the road. We had our favourite doughnuts by Lena Lu at Fremantle Markets.
Lenu Lu Doughnuts
The accommodation
In addition to the chill out tent, Nomadika also set up glamping tents for everyone. We had the whole campground to ourselves and it was absolutely perfect for us.
Henry White Oval Campground, Yanchep National Park
Day 2
The wedding didn’t end there; it was a 2 day affair. The following morning we woke up after a comfortable night in the tents and cooked up eggs and bacon on the BBQ.
The rest of the day we let everyone explore the park. The national park has a koala sanctuary, a lake, a cave system and plenty of walking trails. We all did the cave tour to escape the heat and the persistent flies in the middle of the day.
Koala Santuary
Yanchep National Park Cave
Shaun cooked up a storm on the BBQ for dinner and we finally got a speech out of Grimo, Shaun’s best man, and I did one myself.
After a few drinks, we thought it would be a great idea to go and see the koalas at night time when they are most active. We took the bush route and 50 meters in I had to stop Shaun from standing on a deadly snake! In our 3 years living in WA this is the first snake we have encountered. It was a baby dugite which could have killed him!
We decided to turn around and take the tarmac road instead. The koalas were amazing to see at nighttime moving around. Although I think everyone was more interested in checking out the spiders glaring at us in the torchlight.
An absolutely incredible ‘Wed-Fest’ with incredible people … just perfect!
Signing out as, Mrs S
- Dress | Grace Loves Lace Harriet second hand from Still White.
- Hair and makeup | Myself.
- Flower crown | Floral Army, although I had wanted to make this myself but my mum talked me out of it the day before!
- Flowers | Ceremony and reception blooms by House of Primrose. My bouquet, a dreamcatcher-esque ring, I made myself and Floral Army added the flowers.
- Ceremony styling | House of Primrose hire and styling of the boho-themed ceremony.
- Reception styling | Items I purchased myself plus ceremony items re-purposed from the ceremony and styled by House of Primrose.
- Glamping tents | Nomadika
- BBQ | Yanchep Inn
- Rings | Mine was Brinkhaus Jewellers and Shaun’s I made myself.
- Music | Ben Merito
- Photographer | Sebastian Merle
- Transport | VW combi from Kool Kombis
- Celebrant | Marissa Crouch