Handmade Farm Wedding - Polka Dot Bride

Ashleigh & Ryan

Ashleigh and Ryan celebrated their day in a homemade, romantic wedding. Intimate, handmade and beautiful they took to a local farm for the ceremony before returning to Ashleigh’s parent’s home for a reception filled with fairy lights and floral arrangements filled with life and colour. Their day was captured by Goldsmith & Co.

Ashleigh tells their story. “We met through a mutual friend who I studied with at university. Ryan had recently moved into her share-house when I went over there for a brunch catchup with uni mates and ended up spending most of the time chatting to Ryan – and mostly over our shared love of food!”

The bride chose a gown by Nicolangela. Adding a special touch to her shoe, “My ‘something old’ was a threepence that I wore taped into my shoe – my mum wore it taped in her shoe on her wedding day, as did my Nana on her wedding day, so that was really special.”

Family was involved in every aspect of the day says Ashleigh. “My brother was our chauffeur for the day in his refurbished 1970’s Valiant Charger – we loved that he could do that for us, and he loved all the attention his car got! Ryan’s best man was his brother Liam, and his two sisters brought the rings up for us during the ceremony. His sisters live in NSW and they don’t see each other as often as they would like, so it meant a lot having them involved. The whole day though was really special. We had put so much thought into the day and how we wanted it to go, and we had heard stories from everyone beforehand about how weddings never go to plan and you have to roll with the things that go wrong – but our day really was perfect, and was just as we had hoped!”

Ashleigh walked down the aisle to Josh Pyke’s ‘Sew My Name’.

Ashleigh and Ryan married at Churchill Island Heritage Farm. Ashleigh remarking, “The ceremony was at Churchill Island Heritage Farm, just off Phillip Island in Victoria. It’s a really unique location, with gorgeous old buildings and ducks, peacocks, chickens and cows just wandering around! The wedding was on Friday March 14th, and we were incredibly lucky with beautiful weather.”

“My mum & Ryan’s mum did a reading together during the ceremony, Dr Seuss’s ‘Oh, The Places You’ll Go’. They took it in turns to read, and it was so lovely having both of them play a part!”

Of their photographers, Ashleigh says, “Goldsmith & Co were great. Jane & Brett were really easy to deal with, which we found from the moment we first met them to discuss them taking our wedding photos. Brett’s photos were beautiful, and a gorgeous reminder of the amazing day we had.”

The reception was held at Ashleigh’s parent’s home. There were plenty of DIY touches, Ashleigh explaining, “My dad worked so hard getting the house ready, building the decking and running around madly helping during the set up the week before – he was amazing. And the friends that helped out on the day with all sorts of jobs, to make the day run smoothly for us, it was so much appreciated.

I made a sign to sit in front of the bar with our initials & a heart strung across a corkboard in hot pink string, and used the same string, twine & white hessian wrapped around jars to match the colour theme, which we gave to the florist for the table flowers to be arranged in. I also painted text onto cut up timber fence palings to create directional signs to the ceremony, as well as a welcome sign that sat outside the marquee.”

Garlands hung in the marquee, Ashleigh remembering, “Ryan’s mum made some beautiful folded paper decorations using a mix of pink & orange papers (the colours we had used on the invitations), as well as old sheet music. These hung behind the cake table”

Le Petit Gateau created a decadent chocolate wedding cake for the couple and Blake’s Feast served up canape style delights all night long. Ashleigh remembers, “The caterers, Blake’s Feast, were amazing. The food was absolutely delicious, looked gorgeous, and everyone raved about it – and is still raving about it! Given that our relationship started over a shared love of food it was really important to have really good quality food at the wedding, and we were so happy with their service.”

“We wanted it to have a relaxed garden party feel, so the floor was the backyard grass, we had a mix of trestle tables & picnic tables we had hired, and my dad built a decking especially to create a dance floor for us! We strung up fairy lights throughout the marquee, and borrowed lights from a friend to string above the dance floor.”

The couple didn’t want a first dance, Ashleigh remarking, “We decided not to include a first dance. It wasn’t a tradition that meant something to either of us – and the idea of being watched dancing by all our guests didn’t appeal! It didn’t stop the guests though! It was a great party (the newly-built dance floor was very well used!), and had a perfect relaxed, fun feel to the night, we had the best time. We also discovered the impressive dancing skills of the groom’s extended family – first taking over the decking throughout the night, finishing up dancing on picnic tables by the end of the night! ”