Megan and Liam's Vintage Country Wedding

Megan & Liam

It was our love of horses that brought us together. I decided to attend to my horse riding club after a year-long break to have some show jumping lessons. Liam just happened to be the show jumping instructor that day; we instantly connected and the rest as they say is history.

My cousin from Damian Wheeler Design created our beautiful equestrian themed stationery. The paper had a lovely textured feel and the envelopes were hand-made with real flower petals and embedded leaves.

We live in central Victoria and wanted a venue close to home, something that captured the beauty of the country side. When we first saw Mingela Homestead we fell in love; it was just perfect and was the first and only venue we looked at. Mingela is a private 1000 acre working farm with a beautiful homestead, polo field and stables. Liam & I, with the help of family and a few friends, styled the venue ourselves.

Liam’s dog Buzz loves attention, so we couldn’t leave him out of our celebrations. He dressed up in a doggy suit and posed for photos while Liam and his groomsmen were getting ready.

I had so much fun getting ready with my Mum and bridesmaids. Mum gave me the most amazing gift photographs of my grandparents and a copy of their marriage certificate. My grandparents were happily married for over 50 years!

My hairdresser, Michael Lee, was so amazing! When we arrived at his salon in the morning he had a beautiful spread of pastries, muffins and coffee for us. He interpreted what I wanted for everyone’s hair perfectly; we all felt so relaxed and pampered when we left.

My dress was by Maggie Sottero. I loved the soft lace detailing on the bodice and the skirt and the belt added a touch of sparkle. My bridesmaids wore a blush pink dresses from Forever New.

Liam’s favourite song is ‘The Sound of Silence’ so I walked down the aisle to an instrumental piano version. We chose to include a ‘love lock’ ritual as part of our ceremony. The locks represent our love for one another; closing the lock together on the tree of life locks our love in forever. There is no key for the locks and once they are closed they can never be re-opened. We now have a beautiful piece of art to hang on our wall.

Our celebrant Catherine Shelley was incredible. She created a beautiful personalised ceremony and really went above and beyond making sure everything was just perfect before the ceremony started. We had so many compliments on how perfectly Catherine officiated the ceremony.

My cousins from Cara Loren Photography captured our day perfectly; they made the photography so much fun and we spent so much time laughing. The images are so amazing – we love them!

We were so incredibly lucky to have two of our horses with us on the day. Michelle the property manager looked after them for us and had them beautifully presented for our photos.

When planning our wedding, we wanted the day to truly represent us and all the things in our lives that we love. To personalise our vintage country theme we decided to hand make and DIY as many things as we could; the list was long but it was well worth the effort!

We made the bench seats for the ceremony, the arch we were married under, our photo booth wall, the swing seat, all the wooden directional signs, the bar and bar tables, the table seating plan, the planter boxes for the marquee entrance, the life size jenga, the ring book and the confetti cones! We also up-cycled our signing table and chairs, the outdoor powder room dresser and the table for our photo booth props.

We created an outdoor powder room for our guests with a few essentials so there was a place to freshen up throughout the day.

Our caterers Wood & Spoon were fantastic; they took care of decorating the tables for us and the food was amazing! So many of our guests were raving about it..

We gave our guests mini lucky horseshoes to celebrate our love of horses.

We wanted our first dance to be to our song ‘Glad You Came’ by The Wanted. I couldn’t find a nice slow version so I ended up recording my own cover. Our first dance was one of my favourite moments of our day. We left it up to our band Ticket to Vegas to decide which songs to play; they had everyone up on the dance floor. They were so easy going and we loved they way they interacted with our guests and created such a fun and energetic atmosphere.

Our videographers from Love Journal Photography did an amazing job – they were so easy to work with and spent a great deal of time before our day giving us hints and tips. Deciding to have a videographer was one of the best things we did; when ever we watch our video we feel like we are back there, reliving our wonderful day!