Holographic Festival Wedding With Iridescent Details

MJ & Tegan

If a wedding could be a unicorn, then Tegan & MJ’s holographic festival wedding would be it. It’s filled with utter colour, utter fun, and stunning holographic, iridescent detail. There are food trucks and fairy floss, first looks and flower-filled cars. It’s everything you dream a festival wedding to be and we’re so delighted to bring you this story.

Tegan and MJ chose Johnny Rollins to capture their day, and we’re lucky enough to include the work of Meg Read Photography today, who captured the incredible details, styled up by Wanderlust Creative – the team who helped MJ and Tegan bring to life their day!

But before we dive into the details, we need to set the scene with the story of how these two came to be. In bride Tegan’s words “We had a mutual friend, a movie was organised and we all met up together. Everyone had already discussed beforehand that they thought MJ & I should sit next to each other, so the cinema seating was awkwardly moved around to make sure we were next to each other (we were 15 & 16!) from there we just messaged & called each other constantly, I still remember being told off for the extremely expensive phone bill, from a landline no less too!”

MJ popped the question on Tegan’s birthday. “It was my birthday over the weekend, I had decided we should go to the Peninsula Springs for a couple of nights. We had a really beautiful dinner, ate some doughnuts and then set up the accommodation’s outdoor spa under the stars, MJ proposed the first night we were there outside in the spa, he was planning on waiting until we got to the Springs but decided he couldn’t wait any longer.”

The groom and groomsmen dressed in pieces from Asos, finishing their look with Peggy & Finn. “We had so much trouble getting MJ’s outfit sorted” remembers Tegan. “He was just a bit opinionated about what he liked and what he didn’t like. I ended up ordering heaps of different pants from ASOS & the Iconic to try and get a feel for colour options, I ordered a deep purple colour thinking they would go with my dress pretty well, and we just went from there, he knew he wanted a Peggy & Finn bow tie and then he wanted ‘out there’ shoes, that took me the longest! But ASOS had the goods.”

Tegan dreamt of a gown with plenty of sparkle, finding her beaded beauty Hayley Paige gown at Eternal Bridal. “I was really keen on trying on a Hayley Paige dress, only one bridal store in Melbourne stocks her dresses, it was Eternal Bridal on High St in Armadale. I took my sister in law and we were just going to try on for fun, I hadn’t been to any other bridal stores. I picked out a couple & then the dress consultant picked out a couple. I knew I wanted something fun & not too typical. I was tossing up between a boho style & a princess kind of style. I ended up falling in love with the 5th dress that the consultant picked out. Made me feel really good about myself and I loved how it looked.”

The couple chose to have a first look, with just their wedding party, in a redwood forest. The groom and groomsmen hanging a custom printed fabric backdrop to mark the spot.

Of their chosen photographer, Tegan was thrilled. “Johnny Rollins was amazing!! We felt so relaxed & at ease. The photos don’t look too posed or forced, so many I am laughing in, which is exactly what we wanted. All of the photos came out amazing, every time I look through them I feel all the same emotions as I did on our wedding!”

Styling photos by Meg Read Photography

We talked before about how Wanderlust Creative brought this wedding to life, now hear it from the bride herself! “Laura from Wanderlust Creative was our wedding planner & stylist. She made the whole planning process so stress-free & easy, she got what we wanted the day to be straight away, she is someone we are still in contact with today!”

Babiana Botanic did all the blooms for the day, even helping Tegan add photos of her loved ones to her wedding bouquet, but that backdrop, oh that backdrop! Tegan shares “Laura from Wanderlust who was our stylist/planner organised all of our flowers with Babiana Botanic. I sent her some inspo photos of the style/type of flowers I liked. She kept it super simple around the venue, which was perfect and I loved every single flower chosen, it all looked beyond amazing.”

Photos by Johnny Rollins

A festival wedding requires plenty of open space and Murgheboluc Recreation Reserve fit the bill. Tegan remarking “We had ceremony & reception at the one venue. Murgheboluc Recreation Reserve. The requirements for our venue was that it could fit large tipis & food trucks, we wanted it to suit our chilled wedfest vibe. There ended up being not very many options! If it hadn’t been for our wedding planner continually following up with the venue I don’t think we would have even got it booked! It was volunteer-run through the council so a bit different to a typical wedding venue.”

Tegan walked down the aisle with her father to ‘Mess is Mine’ by Vance Joy.

The couple were married by Weddings By Jess. “We didn’t want our ceremony to be too long. ” notes Tegan “We chose Jess Kerr to be our celebrant. I had been following her on Instagram for quite a while. We didn’t have any readings at all. We did have a thumb war to decided who read their vows first & finished it off with a high five and then a kiss.
We got so much positive feedback about Jess, she told our story so beautifully, helped us write our vows & kept it all fun!”

As the couple were pronounced married, a confetti cannon exploded. MJ noting “My favourite memory? It’s really hard to pick just one moment, I think walking down the aisle together and then our confetti cannon going off. But our first look in the redwoods, dancing all night & bringing in the ice cream truck get a special mention too.”

Styling photos by Meg Read Photography

The stationery details were delightful for Tegan and MJ, Rebel Reflect creating the paper goods, while Sketch & Etch used them as inspiration to create the acrylic signage.

Guests were invited to help themselves to treats – custom fairy floss by Fluffe, Ferrero Rocher chocolates or pretzels by Bretzel Biz.

Photos by Johnny Rollins

Guests enjoyed drinks alongside a variety of food trucks – Biggie Smalls Kebabs,& Happy Camper Pizza Truck, with caravan bar Valerie Caravan Bar. “We wanted a really relaxed atmosphere, so we opted for no cake, no speeches (except for one my husband & I made together), the catering was all food trucks and we had no seating plan. It was really important to us not to include some of these things because it just wasn’t us, we wanted as much time to eat, drink & dance.”

The couple chose “Lay It On Me” by Vance Joy for their first dance, sharing “Our dance floor was just in front of the tipis, under some festoon lighting, so magical!! We didn’t have a choreographed dance, we practised what we would do once in the garage while working on our beetle, definitely should have practised something more.”

One of the bride’s favourite memories? The sunset photo session. “We had to climb a little fence to get onto a hill for some dusk photos, I had taken my shoes off and I thought I would be fine to walk barefoot, but there were heaps of little prickles in the grass, our videographer ended up taking his shoes off & giving them to me to walk back down the hill, the best!”

There was limited DIY from these two, who left their day to the experts. “We restored my old 74’ VW Beetle, that was about it!” laughs Tegan. The beloved beetle filled with flowers and a neon sign. “It summed up our wedding in a nutshell & was displayed in a car that means a lot to MJ & myself.”

And the newlyweds had one last surprise in store for their guests’ thanks to Mobile Icecream Vans. “At the end of the night we had an ice-cream van turn up, none of the guests knew about it so that was a fun surprise for everyone. MJ & I jumped in and fished out some ice-cream cones before running off with our own.”