For Krissy and Michael, marrying in the middle of a pandemic meant a bucketload of stress. Including day of wedding COVID tests for very important guests! And yet, because they completely focused on what was important to them, and no one else, they pulled off a day that was not just beautiful (I mean hello, look at those blooms!) but also heartfelt. We’re so delighted to have Krissy share the story of the day herself, as captured by Elsa Campbell Photography.

Michael and I met online, waaay back before Tinder. We exchanged emails for a couple of weeks before deciding to meet under the clocks at Flinders Street station. On the way to our second date, I received a job offer that would mean I needed to move to QLD for a year or so. Michael could tell I was a bit flustered after I arrived, so I told him that I would be moving for this job and asked him if he wanted to continue the date. He said of course! We ended up staying in touch as friends while I was away, but when I returned to Melbourne a year later we just picked up where we left off. Looking back on it, it was pretty magic!

Michael would say that I had been giving him hints about proposing for a couple of years before we got engaged. We got to a point where we were finally ready to grow our family with a fur baby and we had a very frank conversation about which would come first. Michael said he couldn’t afford both a diamond and a dog in the same year, and he asked me which I would prioritise. Obviously, I chose the dog! But little did I know, only a few months after we welcomed Albie to our family, Michael would propose on a long weekend away at the Yarra Valley.

It was the last day of our weekend away and we had just enjoyed a lovely breakfast at Stones of the Yarra Valley. We were walking around the grounds before heading back home and we got up to this little hill overlooking the vineyards. The next minute, Michael was on one knee saying all these lovely words and asked me to marry him. I couldn’t stop laughing – it was such a happy and beautiful moment, and totally unexpected.

We were recommended YSG tailors by Grace for Michael’s suit. We always knew that we wanted to have our outfits made especially for us so having a custom made suit was always the plan. Ryan was simply awesome to work with. Michael wanted a classic, navy suit and as soon as we shared our vision, Ryan hit the nail on the head with the selections he made. The suit came together perfectly.

For our flowers, we wanted BIG! I wanted a big bouquet, with lots of texture. We left most of the choices up to our florist, Vivienne at Hollingsworth Studio. We just knew that she would nail it, no matter what she chose. The only real request we had was to include rosemary, as it is a Croatian tradition to wear rosemary at weddings, as a bit of a homage to my heritage. We opted to have a pack down station at the end of the night where our flowers were wrapped up into bouquets for our guests to take home, we loved this so much as a sustainable option!

We decided not to have a wedding party and that it would just be the two of us. We never felt comfortable with the idea of choosing a handful of friends to dress in a uniform and prove their love to us! We just wanted everyone to come along and enjoy the day as our guests. We both got ready individually with our families and it was such a nice way to spend the morning before coming together.

We had our wedding on Saturday, March 27th 2021. When deciding where to get married, we knew we wanted to keep it local. We had been living in Brunswick together for the last 8 years and it just felt right to get married amongst the laneways where we spent most of our time together. We really wanted a chill vibe, lots of good food and wine, and most of all for our friends and family to have a really fun night.

We ended up choosing Noisy Ritual Urban Winery in Brunswick East for both our ceremony and reception. We loved that we could do everything at the one venue, it took a lot of pressure off our interstate family and our guests could arrive and settle in for a great night.

Initially, we were dreading the thought of the ceremony. We had been to a couple of weddings where the ceremony was so dry and corny, and really not a reflection of what we would want at all! And then, there was Nat Sproal. When we met Nat for the first time, we were struck by how easily we got along and we just vibed instantly. We HAD to have Nat on our team, so we booked her for our ceremony straight away (we also swindled Nat into staying on to MC for us too!) We still can’t believe how good our ceremony was. It was such a true reflection of us as a couple – relaxed, heartfelt and not too serious at all. Our guests are still raving about how amazing Nat was to this day!

It was really tough not being able to have my Croatian family attend due to covid restrictions. I wanted my dad to do a traditional toast, complete with homemade rakija (a spirit made from plums) after our ceremony. It was such a great way to get the party started, with a shot of 40% alcohol!

Being a curvier bride, I hated the idea of going dress shopping from the very beginning. I hated that brides my size were rarely represented by bridal designers and less likely to be featured on wedding blogs, where I turned most to get styling inspiration.

I knew that I wanted to avoid the disappointment of going from store to store trying on dresses, so when I found Grace at Twelve South Bridal online I knew that she would be the one to create a couture gown just for me and my body shape. Grace was simply amazing. She made me feel comfortable from our very first Facetime appointment (thanks covid) and she just got my style from the very beginning.

I had always wanted a statement sleeve, and after choosing my fabrics the dress came together quite naturally. Sure, I had meltdowns about it all coming together, especially as we were wedding planning deep during the covid outbreaks in Melbourne, but Grace was always able to put my mind at ease and I loved that she gave me her honest opinions about how the dress was coming together.

My favourite photograph is this one of Michael and I laughing crossing Lygon Street. One of our friends beautifully put it by saying “You look as though you are going forward into your married lives, hand in hand and laughing like you can tackle anything coming your way”.

Our photographer Elsa Campbell was an absolute gun behind the camera. One of our favourite moments of the day was our portrait session, where we walked the nearby laneways chasing the light. Elsa had some chill music playing and it was lovely to have some quiet moments together before heading into our ceremony. Elsa was amazing in the lead-up, chatting to us plenty of times on the phone as we came up with timings and a plan for where we would take our photos. We adore the result.

We really wanted a big focus on good food and drinks. Noisy Ritual put together an epic grazing table and kept our guests well watered with their delicious wines, beer and negronis on arrival. Firecracker were slinging food in the kitchen and my oh my it was DELICIOUS! Cassie from Firecracker was also a standout vendor, having stepped in for us when our original caterer pulled out. She was incredible at putting our minds at ease and even reprinted our menus for us. We are incredibly grateful to her and her team. My dad still talks about their beef to this day.

We decided to DIY our stationery to save a bit of cash. In hindsight, I would have paid to have someone do our stationery for us. I spent way too much time choosing fonts and colours and I think I became incredibly overwhelmed by all of the choices out there. My mum also had made rosemary pins for our guests to wear as they arrived (also a Croatian tradition).

Michael has a musical background so it was always going to be really hard to choose the music! He must have spent hours putting together Spotify playlists for background music and researching songs for our band to play. The song for the walk down the aisle was all mine though! I chose an acoustic cover of LOVE by Kendrick Lamar. Our band, Little Buster Brown, absolutely nailed it – it was such a stunning rendition.

For our first dance, Michael and I sat down with three of our top songs and listened to them together to choose our first dance song. When we heard “Absolute Beginners” by David Bowie (Michael’s choice) we both cried listening to the lyrics and we just knew it was the one.

The biggest worry we had was that given the ever-changing nature of covid and our interstate borders, that Michael’s family wouldn’t be able to attend at the last minute.

One of Michael’s sisters and her family are from Brisbane and they flew down the night before the wedding. We were having family dinner when they received text messages from the DHHS as there had been cases in Brisbane – they needed to isolate and return negative tests before being able to go about their business in Victoria. Already being 8.30 PM, they scrambled first thing in the morning to get tested and hoped to return a negative test before the ceremony at 5 PM. Michael’s sister came running into the venue at 4.45 PM in tears, hoping that they hadn’t missed it. They all returned negative results but that 24hr period was so stressful!

Our advice for anyone getting married is to keep your day as true to yourselves as possible. Include the things that make you happy and ditch the things that don’t. Be picky with your vendors – we were so lucky to have an amazing team to bring our dream day to life. And most of all, enjoy each and every moment!

Krissy and Michael chose Moment Seeker to bring their day to life on film.

Krissy & Michael, thank you so much for sharing such a stunning and romantic day with us. And to Elsa Campbell Photography for capturing the magic of their day.