A Homemade Australian Bush Wedding - Part Two

Continued from A Homemade Australian Bush Wedding – Part One

Brad and Mechelle

We wanted our Dingo ‘Allira’ to also feature in our wedding, as she is the first family dog we have owned together. So with some trepidation we tied our rings to a handmade (by Brad) lace collar that she wore for the special day. She patiently sat in the bridal line up until her time came to deliver the rings!

We have so many beautiful shots, with stunning backdrops around this area. We had so much fun, Levi Gardner is a really informal and easy going photographer. He knew us both well, but remained professional. He just sat in the background and captured some great, natural and bright shots, and we barely knew he was there. We were so pleased with all the natural autumn colours captured in the shots, that was just what we wanted when we held our wedding in Autumn.

The Reception was held in the Woolshed at Riverwood Downs and guests served themselves in a big Buffet style meal. Noni’s Fowlers Vacola bottles with a lace trim held beautiful bunches of flowers, by Sue at Gloucester Flowers. We had lace table cloths topped with doilies and hessian in the center, scattered with tiny gumnuts and colourful leaves. Our favours were colourful little jars with home-made preserves of Mango Jam and Mango chutney, made with our homegrown Mango crop and cooked by the Groom, my mother, and my brother-in-law. We had a guestbook made by scrapbook shop ‘Shabbyscrap’ on Etsy. Guests took a picture of themselves with a Polaroid Camera, stuck the photo in the book and wrote a message. The candelabra on the bridal table was made by Brad with ‘up-cycled’ materials too!

I left the cake completely in Brad’s hands – being a chef he wanted this part of the wedding to have his touch. He designed the three tier asymmetrical cake and had his favourite local cake shop ‘Piece Of Cake‘ Castle Hill create the design, in a mud cake, traditional fruit cake and gluten free almond cake. The tiers were held up by the champagne glasses used at his parents wedding.

The Speeches were kept short and sweet so we had maximum time for the BUSH DANCE! Brad and I attended many bush dances when we were dating, and always felt it was a guaranteed way to ensure all the guests got up and had some fun dancing – they tell you what to do – it’s a no brainer! We chose the Australian Folk Band Walcha Road on recommendation, and they were fantastic! They played live music while guests ate their meal and it just MADE the atmosphere. They were just like old friends playing away together and enjoying themselves – it was really uplifting. Folk music is such happy music – I love it! One of the instrumentalists even brought his dog along for the performance and he had been taught to ‘bark’ on cue at certain times during their songs – the guests loved it.