Jen & Jeff
There is a very beautiful feeling to Jen and Jeff’s Mornington Peninsula Holiday Home wedding. As the title suggests, the couple hired a holiday house for their wedding, using its grounds to celebrate their nuptials. The wedding has all the relaxed vibes of a holiday house celebration, with an edge of style (most evident in the bride’s incredible gown!) The newlyweds chose Georgia Verrells to capture their day.
Jen tells, “We met in a bar called Section 8, in one of Melbourne’s famous lane ways.”
Jen chose a custom-made gown from Baccini and Hill paired with silver Jimmy Choo heels. Her bridesmaids chose soft peach gowns from Jigsaw.
Merricks North Retreat was chosen for the ceremony and reception, the bride explaining, “We had the ceremony and reception at Merricks North Retreat which is a holiday house on the Mornington Peninsula. Our family and friends stayed on site or nearby so we could transport everyone to and from the venue by mini bus on the day. We wanted to have the ceremony and reception in the same place so guests didn’t have to travel in between. We also wanted to have a venue where could bring our favourite food and beverages, and keep the party going for as long as we wanted. The grounds are beautiful and include a tennis court, swimming pool, hot tub and multiple outdoor entertaining areas. The owners are lovely and there’s nobody else around, the perfect place to spend five days with a wedding in the middle – bliss.”
Jen walked down the aisle to Caledonia played by Robert Crozier. Jen remembers, “We loved having a bag piper and being piped down the aisle – it was really special to have a piper at our wedding and important to us to stick to our roots.”
Of their photographer, Jen tells, “Georgia was amazing, easy and fun to work with through the whole process and did a fantastic job on our wedding day. We very nearly didn’t hire a wedding photographer, and we are so glad we found Georgia. We didn’t find her until the month before our wedding so we were quite disorganised and had no idea what to expect, or what we wanted. Luckily for us Georgia was super organised and we didn’t have to worry about a thing. Merricks North Retreat is such a beautiful property so we were lucky we didn’t have to travel anywhere. Georgia had preplanned all the photo locations in several earlier site visits which made it very easy.”
“As it was a garden party/marquee wedding at a private holiday house, it meant we had a blank canvas so we had to DIY quite a lot of it, which was a lot of work to source everything but worth every second. Jeff designed and built our wedding website which we used as our invitation. It had lots of information about Melbourne for our families coming from NZ and the UK; how to get to and around, and our favourite places to go and eat and drink.”
The duo were assisted by wedding planner 2Blossom and florist Flowers by Ren . Jen telling. “Jeff also made and printed all the stationery on the day too – we had a New Zealand and Scotland flora and fauna theme on our stationery. We also made our own wedding favours which was a hangover kit containing sweets from Scotland and New Zealand, hangover tea, Aesop moisturizer, Hydralyte and Panadol. We also did most of the set up in the marquee ourselves and Jodi from 2 Blossom and Ren from flowers by Ren did an amazing job and pulled it all together on the day.”
Orlando Combo Jazz Band kept the chic atmosphere in the air with sleek jazz tunes all night long.
Food and wine was one of the more important parts of the day to the couple, who note, “I’m from Scotland and Jeff is from New Zealand so we had lots of guests traveling from the UK and New Zealand, and wanted to showcase what we love about Melbourne – the food and wine. So we would love to mention the food and beverage vendors on the day who were: Quealy Wines – we love Quealy Wines, so were very happy that they were able to supply us with copious amounts of Rageous and Pobblebonk for our wedding. Beers and cider from Mountain Goat Brewery and decadent dinner from Fancy Hanks BBQ. We didn’t have a wedding cake, instead had lots of delicious petit fours from Little Bertha.”
Jen remembers, “We didn’t have a first dance as we were keen to get our guests up from their tables and onto the dance floor. So a close Scottish friend of ours and his wife were kind enough to teach a few lucky guests (they were actually running up to the dance floor to take part) how to ceilidh dance while everyone looked on in hysterics.”
The speeches were a highlight for the bride, particularly, “My Dads speech, it was amazing and much to everyone’s surprise! He brought the house down and raised himself to rockstar status.”
Congratulations on your marriage Jen and Jeff! Thank you for sharing the story of your day with us! Thank you also to Georgia Verrells for sharing today’s wedding!
awsome wedding. Thanks for sharing