Sarah & Matt's Vintage Inspired Daylesford Convent Wedding

Sarah and Matt

Daylesford is such a beautiful place for a weekend getaway – which makes it just as beautiful for a vintage inspired wedding like Sarah and Matt celebrated. We do love keeping it n the family at Polka Dot Bride (you can check out Matt’s brother’s Winter wedding over here) Captured by Louisa Bailey the lavender, the trees, the vintage details add a dreamy elements to the day.

Sarah tells, “We met at work seven years ago. It didn’t take long for the spark!”

Sarah and Matt chose The Convent, Daylesford for their wedding ceremony, telling, “The Convent was really intimate and suited the number of guests we had just perfectly. The views from the top of this property look right over Daylesford and the gardens are so beautiful.”

Sarah walked down the aisle to ‘Thank You’ by Chris Cornell.

Sarah’s gorgeous gown was made by Rose Zurzolo Couture. The groom and groomsman wore grey suits from Travellers Apparel while Sarah’s bridesmaid wore a knee length dress from Life With Bird.

Of their photographer, Sarah says, “Louisa is an old school friend of mine so we actually know each other from way back. Louisa is a delight to work with, so patient and lovely and her photography style was exactly what we were looking for – slightly vintage, very classic and very soft hues. Suited the style of our wedding perfectly.”

“We had a number of special details. Matt and I are single malt scotch fans so we bought a special bottle to share in the car whilst we had our photos taken.”

Sarah and Matt chose Sault Restaurant for their reception, telling, “The minute we walked into Sault we knew we had to have our wedding party here! We went for a really classic 1920’s garden party feel and deep down wanted a place where we could imagine being on a beautiful French or Italian property. Sault was all of this. The lavender garden was in full bloom, the lake glistened and the restaurant felt more like a house. The staff were just fantastic too. Never too far away.”

Prunella created the floral arrangements for the day, Sarah noting, “Special mention to Prunella for the flowers…those are some clever ladies! ”

Guests received potted lavender, Sarah telling, “We didn’t want to clutter the tables and wanted to compliment the vases of flowers with lavender in pots to reflect the gardens of Sault. These lavender pots then became the bonbonierie.”

“The benefit of having the party at Sault was that we had a blank canvas to work with. Coming from a very creative family, the ideas were limitless! My mum was the main star and hand made the wishing well and all the napkins. The one thing we didn’t want was white table dressings. We wanted a fun, garden summer party and that meant all the napkins needed to be pastel colours to match the flowers. My mum sourced the linen and spent hours making 70 napkins! We also sourced cut crystal vases from op shops to give the vintage feel. Matt’s mum has beautiful cursive writing so she did us the honour of writing out everyone’s name cards.”

The newlyweds made their wedding into a weekend extravaganza, explaining, “We were honored to have guests from London, Italy, Dubai, Hong Kong, Queensland and Perth attend our small wedding so we wanted it to feel like a party long weekend! We had a casual dinner on the Thursday night followed by the wedding on Friday and then Matt and I hired a stunning lake house on Lake Daylesford with our close friends. We hosted a lunch time BBQ on the Saturday which everyone actively got involved in both sharing stories of the wedding day and facing off in some competitive bocci in the sun…..to the point we had to ask everyone (politely) to leave at 4.30 am the next day…. It is fair to say everyone partied hard!!”

The first dance was spontaneous, Sarah remembering, “We actually never planned to do a first dance as such, but wanted everyone to hit the dance floor at the same time. Our guests however wanted us to do a first dance. We had chosen Otis Redding, ‘These Arms Of Mine’ to kick it all off.”