Harmony & Liam

“The dress code was “farmyard chic”, and we really just wanted it to be a big party, and celebrate our union with our friends and family.”

Look, we talk a lot about fun here on this pages. We show you ideas, we embrace the details but when it comes to a finished result, a wedding that truly embraced fun –  with ad lib vows read, swing dance floor, pinata filled, boilermaker included? Then Harmony and Liam take the pinata wedding cake. With so much evidence through their wedding photographs captured by Morgan Roberts Weddings at the beautiful county venue of Gum Gully Farm, we’ll take you through every fun-filled moment!

It makes sense that this wedding was filled with swing music because that’s exactly how these two met! They fill us in. “We both are swing dancers, and met swing dancing! Harmony asked Liam to dance at the first event they attended together, and after a few more meetings, Liam asked Harmony out. Harmony said no, but eventually changed her mind, for the better!”

With a dapper floral shirt, Liam chose pieces from Asos, GAP and Bossini Menswear, noting “Once we knew the theme of the wedding, I wanted to dress to that, and the outfit was designed to be both comfortable and fairly striking” explains the groom.

Harmony chose a strapless gown from Jadore working with Melissa E Bridal to customise it, she explains “The dress wasn’t from any designer brand, in fact, it wasn’t actually a wedding dress but an evening gown. I wanted a sleek, trumpet style wedding dress with a train for the ceremony but also needed to be dance-able for later in the night – this posed a problem for the bridal shop and seamstress (Melissa E Bridal, Ballarat) as it was impossible to dance in as it was and the seamstress Melissa had to create a structure of ribbons under the dress in which to hitch it up so that I could dance. It took over 16 ribbons and three dress fittings to make the dress danceable!”

With a particular vibe in mind for their day, there was only one venue that fit the bill – the beautiful Gum Gully Farm! “Gum Gully Farm is an amazing barn-style venue. It’s elegantly rustic, with a lovely stone barn for the dinners, and a few great spots where your ceremony can take place such as a wooden chapel, gardens and under the kiwi vines which is where we opted to have ours” explains Liam and Harmony. “There were some hay bales for our guests to sit on, and the main thoroughfare which we danced down together! The owners at Gum Gully Farm (Sue and Simon) were amazing to work with – they accommodated all of our (slightly crazy) requests (both in decorating and in the process), and made the entire process a real breeze.”

These two? They met before their ceremony because they entered together in a very special way!

Shirazz played live music (a New Orleans inspired “Bourbon Street”) as the wedding party (and the bride and groom!) walked down the aisle – much to the delight of their guests! “We wanted it to be a bit of a party atmosphere, short and sweet. We ensured that our guests had drinks in hand during the ceremony so they could toast us at the end, and we had the band march down the aisle along with the entire bridal party” explain Harmony and Liam.

“Three Rings Celebrancy helped the couple make their ceremony – ad lib style! Harmony remembering “The celebrant said a few wonderful words, and then it was on to our vows which we did a little bit differently! We wanted a bit of interactive fun for our guests and so had them write our vows for us! Upon arrival, they all wrote a vow on the sheets provided, which were given to the celebrant just before the ceremony began. We had no idea what was written on them, and each chose three vows on the spot to read out. Needless to say, we got a few laughs!”

“Our favourite photo was taken just as we were dancing down the aisle after our ceremony and has Harmony picking some confetti from Liam’s head. It just has so much energy and love in the photo, and is so well captured by Morgs!”

“All our vendors were amazing, they were all fantastic in providing excellent advice and service through the whole process, but we have to admit that Sue at Gum Gully Farm really went above and beyond to be available to us and to provide some excellent advice” note the happy couple.

In lieu of a guestbook, Harmony and Liam had guests paint a canvas for them and in lieu of a traditional wedding cake? A wedding pinata! “Our guests really embraced the sense of fun we wanted at the wedding – from giving us some great options for our vows to making sure the dance floor was full, to filling up the guest canvas with their own personal paintings.

Harmony and Lia sourced their flowers from Floramax, playing to the bride’s love of natives. They tell “We were really keen to use native Australian flowers where possible – they have such striking looks, and Harmony has really fallen in love with them after coming to Australia from London – she loves that they are so ‘quintessentially Australian’. We wanted to create all the flower displays and bouquets ourselves, on the one hand, to save some money but also Harmony is quite crafty and luckily with Australian native flowers, we could get away with a more ‘rustic’ look. The bridesmaids had paper parasols instead of the classic bouquet.”

Even the reception was filled with fun, at each place setting, guests arrived to handwritten notes about their neighbouring guest from the bride and groom to create camaraderie amongst the newlywed’s favourite people.

And then there was the wine – and Boilermakers! “We had a bunch of wine from our travels on the dinner tables, and we wrote a little tag on each bottle with its story; details about the winery it was from and something personal about how we found the place. We both like whisky, so we had a bride and groom boilermaker (with some matched snacks) for later on.”

Each guest was gifted a sweet little plant wedding favour potted into a vintage teacup and saucer found by the groom and bride on their op-shop travels.

Even their hosts made sure these two made plenty of special memories. “We were all about to head into the main area for dinner when one of the staff from the venue stopped both of us and made us wait for everybody else to go and get seated. We were happy to just go in and sit, but they wanted to announce us. This isn’t a detail that we had thought about in the lead-up, and it’s probably not something that we would have requested to have happened, but it was a really intense, emotional moment to have our friends and family applauding us as a couple as we entered. It felt like we’d just scored a goal in a packed out football stadium it was so intense.”

“Gum Gully Farm is BYO drinks – which is one of the reasons why we chose it as we both love our beer, wine and whisky and were quite particular about what booze was on offer” tell the newlyweds.” As for food they have several different options to suit most styles and budgets provided by the incredible Yarra Valley Catering.”

And for sunset? The newlyweds wandered outside for stunning portraits with photographer Morgan. “Morgs (Morgan Roberts) is a champion. He works super hard and has a really great journalistic eye for capturing great moments between people. We didn’t want the standard “face the camera” portraits, we wanted to get some great candid moments, and Morgs delivered on that count. We were blown away by the photos he sent through – they look amazing!”

It was never going to be a traditional first dance for these two. “We chose ‘Everybody loves my baby’ played by the band on the night, Shirazz. The song begins at a slow pace and then busts into the super-fast swing! By the end of it, both of us were absolutely stuffed!”

A big congratulations to you both Harmony and Liam! How wonderful it was to share your stories of the day. Thank you to Morgan Roberts Weddings for sharing today’s stunning photographs!