Ash & Pat

A wedding is often such a brilliant reflection of a couple’s community. And for Ash and Pat, there really couldn’t have been any other way to do it. They adorned their day (held at the beautiful oh so historic Springhurst Butter Factory) with olive branches from the groom’s parents own olive grove, the bride’s mother made the cake and the bride’s own engagement ring, had been worn by not only her mother but her grandmother too!
It was just the beginning of the little details that were evidently “Ash & Pat” through every part of the day, right down to the bride’s pale blue shoes!

Andrea Sissons Photography catered this one, in the beautiful region of North East Victoria. A day bride Ashley described as “Relaxed and fun – we just wanted everyone to have a good time!”

It was a Fitzroy pub that led these two to lay eyes on one another, Ashley reminiscing “We met through friends at a pub in Fitzroy way back in 2011. No great love story really… we had crossed paths on several occasions before we met that night as we have a few friends in common. But I guess that night the stars aligned and our future (embarrassingly) was sealed on the dance floor at the Rochester Hotel.” And to set the scene for the kind of teamwork this wedding involved, you need to know, there was no proposal for these two, instead, there was a mutual agreement for something so much more. “There was no proposal – we were out for dinner on a date night and started talking about how we wanted to get married and what the wedding would be like. And we decided to just do it, so we did and we became engaged! I like that it was something that we decided to do together, because why should anyone have to wait for someone to ‘ask the question’ if you both know its something you want to do?”

The heartfelt details of the day started with the bride’s engagement ring, a special heirloom piece. Tells Ash “My engagement ring was my Granny’s and mum also has the same engagement ring. I like that it is unique and has special meaning – it is quite different from the rings you see these days!”

The bride worked with Lainie Brookman Couture to create her custom two-piece wedding gown, to which she added pale blue Rollie Nation shoes. She explains “My dress was made by a dressmaker in Geelong – Lainie Brookman, who was just wonderful. I had a two-piece dress – a high-low skirt with a sequin tulle top. It was pretty nerve-racking having the dress made as I wasn’t someone who had an exact dream dress in mind which made it hard when making decisions. But Lainie was so calm and patient – she clearly has dealt with a lot of nervous brides! I also wore blue Rollies instead of heels which I had a lot of comments about! I am a bit Rollies mad and loved that it was my something blue on the day (and that I could dance all night without getting sore feet!).”

Ash and Pat were married at the Springhurst Butter Factory, a historic, converted butter factory in North East Victoria. Ashley tells “We had our ceremony and reception in the one location at The Springhurst Butter Factory. It was perfect for what we wanted for our day. We knew that we definitely wanted everything in the one spot and there was a great outdoor area for the ceremony and drinks after. The reception was in ‘The Barn’ which is an awesome rustic converted barn, already set up with fairy lights and a built-in bar. There was also accommodation on-site for all of our bridal party and their partners, plus some of our guests.

Stuart and Sue at The Butter Factory were so easy going and helpful, we really couldn’t have found a better venue anywhere else!”

Scout’s Garden provided the flowers for the floral arrangements in beautiful coral orange, pink and raspberry red Ashley says “The flowers were from Scout’s Garden in Beechworth. Issy is the creator of Scout’s Garden and her story is lovely – she started her little flower farm when she lost her beloved dog Scout. Her flowers were just beautiful! I was lucky my mum knew a friend of Issy’s and put me in touch with her. It was near to the end of the season for her so she was about to pull everything out of the garden so I took whatever she had and they were all SO beautiful. We decorated the venue, the arbour and made and bouquets and buttonholes all ourselves with the flowers from Scout’s Garden. We had so many comments on how amazing they all looked but the credit must go to Issy – her garden is next level!”

Ashley walked down the aisle with both of her parents to an acoustic version of “Chateau” by Angus & Julia Stone.

The couple were married by friend Casey-Rae McCrickard, tells the bride “Our celebrant was one of my good friends who is one of the funniest people I know; so it was hard to not to feel like it was all great fun! We had my Granddad who lives in Perth write a piece about married life as he was unable to travel over for the wedding. My Aunty read it out during the ceremony which was a special touch. He was married to my granny for over 60 years so there was a fair bit of advice in there! Our vows were also quite funny; we both made mention of our weekly meal plan which got a few laughs.”

“Our wedding was as much about celebrating us as it was celebrating our nearest and dearest and what it means to have them in our lives. Everyone embraced everything about the day which was great.”

Ash and Pat loved working with their photographer “Andrea Sissons was our photographer and she is from Yarrawonga. Andrea is so good at what she does, we honestly could not be happier with the photos. She could see that we weren’t exactly comfortable in front of the camera and helped us to relax and it was great fun.”

Guests enjoyed a dinner of pizza and charcuterie with help from Pinchos Catering. “We did not want to have a sit-down meal at our wedding with people allocated to a seat. So instead we started with a grazing platter and arancini balls for entree, wood-fired pizza and salads for main and a gelato cart for dessert. It was great that people could mingle and sit wherever they liked – it was a detail we really felt was important!”

That beautiful wedding cake? Baked and decorated by the bride’s mother! Ash remembering “My mum made the cake and I know she stressed for months about it (she is not a professional cake maker!) but it was perfect. Mum has made me a lot of cakes over the years so it meant a lot to share this with everyone.”

“We were really lucky because Pat’s parents have an olive grove on their property so we had access to great greenery, plus there were peppercorn trees all around the venue. That greenery with the flowers made the decorations look great but it was all generally pretty simple.”

Pat’s speech was one of the stories Ash knew needed sharing. “Pat wrote a poem called ‘Rutherglen Girl’ by changing the words to the song ‘Galway Girl’ which we listened to a lot when travelling around Ireland a few years ago. I panicked a little bit when I thought he might sing it, but thankfully he didn’t go quite that far!”

Ash lists the couple’s epic dance floor, led by The Club as one of the biggest highlights. “The Club is so much fun and everyone was up dancing (young and old!)”

The newlyweds took to the dance floor to Elton John’s “Are You Ready For Love”. Says the bride, “We made the dance up in the weeks before the ceremony; you can do anything with YouTube these days!”.

A big congratulations to you both Ash & Pat! Thank you for sharing your beautiful wedding day with us! Thank you also to Andrea Sissons Photography for sharing today’s stunning celebration.