Polly and Jeff's Scottish Inspired Vintage Wedding

Jeff and I met back in 2006, when we were both working together at Coles. After just a short time dating, I knew Jeff was the one for me. He made me so happy and was always so encouraging; he was my perfect match.

The nine years since seem to have flown by, not just surviving, but flourishing, through three years of a long distance relationship when I had to move to Canberra and Darwin for work.

As soon as I was able to get work back in Melbourne, Jeff proposed to me just before a big trip to Europe. He made me promise that I couldn’t start planning until after the trip so we could enjoy our holiday fully, but I did create a sneaky Pinterest page!

I have always had a love of vintage styles and that played a big part in the look and feel of the day. I found a perfect vintage inspired lace dress from Mariana Hardwick with the help of their incredible staff. As Jeff was wearing a traditional red and navy tartan kilt in honour of his late father, this was what we based our wedding colour scheme on.

We chose midnight blue A-line Dessy dresses in different styles for the bridesmaids and matching ties for the groomsmen to go with their charcoal suits. We had vibrant red garden style posies with silver and green foliage by Sugarbee Flowers, as well as thistles to tie them back into the traditional Scottish theme. The girls also had bright red shoes to match their flowers.

With Jeff having a very large family, and both of us having many great friends, it was never going to be a small wedding though we did manage to contain it to 130 of our nearest and dearest. As we had a lot of interstate and a few international guests, it was important for us to keep things simple and have the ceremony and reception plus accommodation all in one venue. After a lot of searching for the perfect place, we found Tatra Receptions and absolutely loved how beautiful it was and that they would take care of so much of the detail.

The ceremony was very relaxed and nontraditional. I walked myself down the aisle to a bagpiper playing some beautiful Scottish tunes. We had a fantastic celebrant in Ally who created a very light hearted and personal ceremony. She even managed to sneak some Harry Potter references in for us!

After the ceremony, Jeff and I walked through a canopy of all our friends and family throwing petals as the bagpiper played. I had made the petal cones out of doilies and personalized stickers and it was so much fun to have everyone shower us with their love in the form of red rose petals!

With our photographer, Anitra Wells, we had photos taken in the beautiful gardens of Tatra. Thankfully the November weather, which had not been kind to us in the lead up to the wedding (it poured the entire 48 hours before the ceremony!), cleared long enough for us for her to take some beautiful photos. You would hardly know it was only 12 degrees at the time (we were all freezing!)

Our reception was full of beautiful food, games, and photobooth fun. As well of course of dancing and memorable speeches. Jeff and I made our entry to ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ by Guns and Roses. For our first dance we pranked our guests by starting the dance to a Celine Dion song (not at all our style) but switched it to ‘Uptown Funk’ by Bruno Mars and let loose!

For wedding favours Mum, my Aunt and I had potted decorative bowls with succulents from my Aunt’s Garden. We also had beautiful honey pot terrariums as part of the centrepieces made by Little Lands.

We both had such a fun and memorable day, made so special by all our friends and family who helped us celebrate. It turned out exactly how we had imagined and despite the cold and the rain, we had the perfect day.