By
wedding date 22 march 2019
105 guests
how did the two of you meet? We first met at the end of 2012 but didn’t get together until about 6 months later. I was in another relationship at the time and Joel was about to jet off on a two-month solo adventure around Borneo. One of Joel’s sisters was living with me and asked if her brother could crash on the couch for a few days before he left for his trip. Our house has always had an open home policy, so of course I said yes. Little did I know it would be the start of a great love story… I was at uni so would often be at home studying.
One day, whilst I was home and everyone else in the was still at work, Joel arrived with fresh groceries he’d bought from the market and said he’d like to cook everyone dinner to say thank you for letting him stay. This certainly piqued my interest – a man that likes to cook! As I was studying on the dining room table, Joel was doing his thing in the kitchen. We chatted and laughed – the conversation was so interesting and easy. I knew I was in trouble when I realised I’d read the same sentence 10 times over!
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the next part of our story is taken from the speech Joel wrote for our wedding:
It was the night of a friend’s birthday, so we all went up to the pub for a few drinks. I was there hanging out, knowing in the back of my mind Sylvie would be arriving shortly and I decided I would like to chat to her more. When she walked in the adrenalin kicked in instantly. I offered to buy her a drink, and to my delight she refused and insisted she by me a beer! We chatted, had a bit of a dance and there were definite sparks flying. As we left the pub, I turned to my friend and said with no doubt in my mind, “That’s the type of girl I want to marry” I wasn’t sure though because I knew she was seeing someone, so I thought I had better back off. However, this friend, with his expert Italian wisdom, said “Nahh are you kidding, GO FOR IT!”
We all ended up back at Sylvie’s house, drinking wine and those delicious Espresso Martini’s that she makes. Sylvie and I chatted all night, every now and then stealing a fevered secret hand squeeze under the table. It was electric. After that night, just before leaving for Borneo I needed some clarity on the situation so I went to the one I always go to for true advice, my little sister Laura. She confirmed there was something special going on!
I left for Borneo, and in the first couple of days, while sitting on Sipadan Island in the Celebes Sea, I sent out an email (with Sylvie included) saying I had arrived safely, and all was going well. Within a few hours she had shot one back. This kicked off two months of hourly messaging between us. Every chance I got I would sneak into a hotel and steal some WIFI just to get my latest update. At one-point news came back that Sylvie was no longer seeing anyone and was single… I was pretty happy to get that message… and so we organised a coffee on the day I returned.
That coffee turned into a bottle of wine, bottle of wine to first kiss, first kiss to moving in, to going travelling together, to getting a dog, to buying a house, now to getting married. And next… who knows!
It was the night of a friend’s birthday, so we all went up to the pub for a few drinks. I was there hanging out, knowing in the back of my mind Sylvie would be arriving shortly and I decided I would like to chat to her more. When she walked in the adrenalin kicked in instantly. I offered to buy her a drink, and to my delight she refused and insisted she by me a beer! We chatted, had a bit of a dance and there were definite sparks flying. As we left the pub, I turned to my friend and said with no doubt in my mind, “That’s the type of girl I want to marry” I wasn’t sure though because I knew she was seeing someone, so I thought I had better back off. However, this friend, with his expert Italian wisdom, said “Nahh are you kidding, GO FOR IT!”
I left for Borneo, and in the first couple of days, while sitting on Sipadan Island in the Celebes Sea, I sent out an email (with Sylvie included) saying I had arrived safely, and all was going well. Within a few hours she had shot one back. This kicked off two months of hourly messaging between us. Every chance I got I would sneak into a hotel and steal some WIFI just to get my latest update. At one-point news came back that Sylvie was no longer seeing anyone and was single… I was pretty happy to get that message… and so we organised a coffee on the day I returned.
That coffee turned into a bottle of wine, bottle of wine to first kiss, first kiss to moving in, to going travelling together, to getting a dog, to buying a house, now to getting married. And next… who knows!
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how long were you together before your engagement? About 2 and a half years.
tell us about the proposal: It was the day after signing the papers to become first homeowners. We decided to spend our first night in the house, despite it being totally void of any furniture, bedding or kitchen things. Joel packed the car with all our camping gear and an esky full of cheese, nibbles, wine and champagne and picked me up from work. We drove straight to the new house, sat on our camping chairs in the backyard with a drink in hand and pinched ourselves that we had just bought a house!
Already in celebration mode, Joel went inside to set up the most delicious grazing table lit by candlelight. I came inside and sat down to help myself to the yummy nibbles. I thought it was a bit odd that he hadn’t sat down yet and was kind of fidgeting and fussing around the place. I turned to him to say sit down and relax when, to my absolute surprise, he was down on one knee!! He proposed and we both had complete tunnel vision. I think he asked twice before I could get the word ‘YES’ out! On top of this epic surprise, Joel had actually booked us a room that night at a fancy hotel. So, we got dressed up, went into the city and ended up spending a night on the town drinking cocktails!
tell us about the proposal: It was the day after signing the papers to become first homeowners. We decided to spend our first night in the house, despite it being totally void of any furniture, bedding or kitchen things. Joel packed the car with all our camping gear and an esky full of cheese, nibbles, wine and champagne and picked me up from work. We drove straight to the new house, sat on our camping chairs in the backyard with a drink in hand and pinched ourselves that we had just bought a house!
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what led you to decide on your Wedding venue? We always knew we wanted an outdoor wedding. We looked at a few different venues but knew deep down that we’d end up having it on Sylvie’s mum and step-dad’s property in regional Victoria. We try to get out of the city and go there every few weeks, so it’s a place that means a lot to us, and now even more so. We also love the idea that we can always come back to the spot where we got married and be able to say to our future kids, “look - mum and dad got married under those trees”!
what was the inspiration behind your Wedding theme? We didn’t really plan it with a specific theme in mind, but the location and natural setting certainly gave direction to the overall style, feel and colour palette. We just wanted it to be a reflection of all the things we love – good food, good drink, good music, good people and good vibes! We enlisted Sylvie’s brother to help with the styling, and our brief to him was ‘relaxed festival vibes in a country/bush setting’.
your most favourite moment/s of the day: There were so many!! The ceremony was really beautiful. It was everything we hoped for – sentimental, joyous, relaxed and full of love. We then stole a quiet, private moment together just after taking photos where we could breath for a minute and had a bit of a bird’s eye view of the whole party. That was really nice because we were able to see all our hard work in planning the day come together and it being enjoyed by everyone. But I think our most favourite moment was right at the end of the night. There was only a small group of us left and we were outside under the marquee. It was still warm. Suddenly, the birds started chirping and it started to rain lightly. Our friends put on ‘Here Comes the Sun’ by The Beatles and we danced in the rain as the sun came up.
what was the inspiration behind your Wedding theme? We didn’t really plan it with a specific theme in mind, but the location and natural setting certainly gave direction to the overall style, feel and colour palette. We just wanted it to be a reflection of all the things we love – good food, good drink, good music, good people and good vibes! We enlisted Sylvie’s brother to help with the styling, and our brief to him was ‘relaxed festival vibes in a country/bush setting’.
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what was your favourite detail/s about the day? Too many to count! But we really appreciated the extra effort some of our friends and family put in to get the property ready. Sylvie’s brother styled the whole reception area – he even built the bar for us! We also loved how we utilised the space on the property. We had both ceremony and reception there, so we wanted to try and create different areas that we could reveal as the day went on. The food truck was a hit as well!
how was your dress/suit shopping experience overall? I knew I was always going to go for quite a simple wedding dress, but didn’t find anything that was perfect in the shops, so I ended up getting it custom made with a local dressmaker – a classic style with a few modern twists (pockets being a must)! Joel wanted a 3-piece suit that he could wear with RM Williams boots, so he also ended up getting it custom made in the most amazing dark green wool-blend fabric which really suited the environment. Both of us took a long time to find what we wanted – I think we both suffered from choice paralysis when looking in the shops! But once we made the decision to go with a custom option, we both had a great experience.
what resources did you find helped you the most during your Wedding planning? Initially, asking lots of questions to friends or family who had recently gone through wedding planning and what they learned from the experience. We also created a spreadsheet that detailed everything from research and quotes to checklists, the guestlist and budgets. It was really helpful to have all this information consolidated in one place.
what does marriage mean to you? Marriage to us is a celebration of our commitment to each other and the merging of two entities into one, a unified force. It is a symbolic ritual to express, to the closest people in our life, our love and pledge to each other – moving past the idea of boyfriend and girlfriend and into a new realm, a new branch of the family.
any classic stories you want to share from the day?
· The buttons on my wedding dress were really tricky to do up. I had 3 people trying to get them done up because we were running behind schedule, but it took forever, and I ended up being about 40 minutes late!
· After the ceremony and bridal party photos I was starving. When we got to the reception area, I made a beeline for the food truck to get something to eat. I took my first mouthful and – of course – I dropped beetroot right down the front of my wedding dress!! Thankfully, my stepsister came to the rescue with some soda water and miraculously got it all out. Life saver!
advice: It’s cliché, but it is YOUR wedding, so just do what feels natural to you and your style. It’s so easy to get swept up in the ‘Instagram Wedding’ world when planning the big day that you can be at risk of losing sight of creating a celebration that’s authentically ‘you’. Also, if you’re doing a DIY wedding like we did, make it a rule to not be at the wedding site/venue the morning of. Give yourselves the time to relax and enjoy the getting-ready process without the stress of seeing all the last bits come together. At the end of the day, don’t sweat the small stuff and trust that you are exactly where you’re meant to be in the moment.
stand out vendors for the day: We really had an amazing experience with all our vendors and are so grateful to have worked with them. A few standouts for us were:
· Photography – Caroline Sada – she was an absolute angel to work with and captured our day even better than we could have imagined. We couldn’t recommend her highly enough!
· Celebrant – Erin McMahon from Sweet Wonderful You – Erin was a dream. Cool, calm and collected and produced a ceremony that was true and unique to us.
· Music – The Rattlers, Billy Barker, Ruby Gill, Kashmere Club, GUMS – all SUCH talented musicians! Everyone was blown away by the music, it felt like a real festival.
how was your dress/suit shopping experience overall? I knew I was always going to go for quite a simple wedding dress, but didn’t find anything that was perfect in the shops, so I ended up getting it custom made with a local dressmaker – a classic style with a few modern twists (pockets being a must)! Joel wanted a 3-piece suit that he could wear with RM Williams boots, so he also ended up getting it custom made in the most amazing dark green wool-blend fabric which really suited the environment. Both of us took a long time to find what we wanted – I think we both suffered from choice paralysis when looking in the shops! But once we made the decision to go with a custom option, we both had a great experience.
what does marriage mean to you? Marriage to us is a celebration of our commitment to each other and the merging of two entities into one, a unified force. It is a symbolic ritual to express, to the closest people in our life, our love and pledge to each other – moving past the idea of boyfriend and girlfriend and into a new realm, a new branch of the family.
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· The buttons on my wedding dress were really tricky to do up. I had 3 people trying to get them done up because we were running behind schedule, but it took forever, and I ended up being about 40 minutes late!
· After the ceremony and bridal party photos I was starving. When we got to the reception area, I made a beeline for the food truck to get something to eat. I took my first mouthful and – of course – I dropped beetroot right down the front of my wedding dress!! Thankfully, my stepsister came to the rescue with some soda water and miraculously got it all out. Life saver!
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· Photography – Caroline Sada – she was an absolute angel to work with and captured our day even better than we could have imagined. We couldn’t recommend her highly enough!
· Celebrant – Erin McMahon from Sweet Wonderful You – Erin was a dream. Cool, calm and collected and produced a ceremony that was true and unique to us.
· Music – The Rattlers, Billy Barker, Ruby Gill, Kashmere Club, GUMS – all SUCH talented musicians! Everyone was blown away by the music, it felt like a real festival.
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Sylvie & Joel from Me & My Camera Wedding Films on Vimeo.
Billy Barker
https://www.triplejunearthed.com/artist/billy-barker
Ruby Gill
https://rubygill.me/
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wedding songs:
Aisle – a live acoustic version of God Only Knows by The Beach Boys (performed by The Rattlers)
Recessional – Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles
First Dance – an original by two of our amazing musicians, Billy Barker and Ruby Gill. It was called Magic Coat. (Find it on YouTube)!
Recessional – Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles
First Dance – an original by two of our amazing musicians, Billy Barker and Ruby Gill. It was called Magic Coat. (Find it on YouTube)!
photography Caroline Sada @carolinesadaphotography
bridal hair & makeup Jess Jenkins @jess._jenkins
prop hire Bendigo Party Hire (basic furniture only i.e. tables, wine barrels, unbrellas)
wedding flowers Castlemaine Floristry @castlemaine_floristry
celebrant Sweet Wonderful You @sweet_wonderful_you
music The Rattlers @_t_h_e_r_a_t_t_l_e_r_s_
Billy Barker (Kashmere Club and GUMS) @gdayitsbillhere
Ruby Gill @rubymarygill
catering Round The Way @round_the_way
marquee hire Bedouin Tents @bedouintentsaustralia
videography Me & My Camera @meandmycamerafilms
bridal gown Vasiliki Couture @vasilikicouture
bride’s shoes Loeffler Randall @loefflerrandall
bridesmaids dresses Shona Joy @shonajoy_ + Fame & Partners @fameandpartners
groom suit Arthur Galan @arthurgalanag
grooms shoes R.M.Williams @r.m.williams_official
bride’s rings Ruth Tomlinson @ruthtomlinsonjewellery
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