In our very first episode of The Feel Good Wedding Podcast by Polka Dot Wedding, Dorothy (she/her) is joined by Will Burton (he/him), to share the story of his & John’s unique Sydney wedding.
Will is 27, originally from the UK. He’s been in Australia for three years and works in marketing. Will and John fell in love with Australia while travelling and love the diversity and inclusivity in Sydney. Will enjoys working out, spending time with friends, watching the sunrise and long walks. He also loves interior design and anything creative and is currently loving furnishing their new apartment. Will and John love travelling and hope to travel even more now that we are able to again.
In this chat we discuss:
- How Will & John ensured their day felt relaxing and not constrained by time
- Their approach to choosing vendors
- Why they chose their suits first when planning their wedding
- How they found LGBTQIA+ friendly vendors
- Will’s advice to the wedding industry on making things more LGBTQIA+ friendly
- Plus Will’s tips on planning a day that is uniquely yours.
Will shares, ‘Do it your way. Honestly, don’t worry about anyone else. Just do it exactly how you want to do it. You know, weddings cost a lot of money, a once-in-a-lifetime experience and just don’t be restricted by those wedding norms and just use the vendors that you know, and trust and you’ll have a great day.’
We hope you enjoyed our very first episode! We’d love for you to share on your socials and tag @polkadotwedding and celebrate the launch with us.
Links & vendors mentioned:
Will & John’s Intimate Wedding On The Sydney Harbour Bridge
Find Will:
On Instagram: @willburton.au
On TikTok: @willburton.au
This podcast was produced by Polka Dot Wedding & Sarah Harney.
The Polka Dot Wedding team is honoured to conduct our work on the land of the BoonWurrung, WoiWorung, Eora and Kuring-gai people. We honour the traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders custodians of the land and pay our respects to Elders past, present & emerging.
Episode Transcript
Dorothy Polka:
Hello, and welcome to The Feel Good Wedding Podcast, a podcast by Polka Dot Wedding.
My name is Dorothy, and I’m the founder and editor of Polka Dot Wedding. I’ve written so much about weddings over the past 15 years. In fact, at last count I had over 10,000 posts on our website, but while I love the flowers, the dresses, the cakes – (that inspires me endlessly); what I’m beginning to love even more is the discussions around diversity and inclusion in the wedding industry.
What I’m beginning to love even more is the journey that we are taking as a business. To change the foundation of how we run everything to change how we include people, to change how we publish weddings, to make them more inclusive. And part of this was publishing a podcast because these are discussions that we think we should be having with you. These are the discussions that we think we should be including you in. And we can’t wait to, we can’t wait to share with you today’s guest.
The Polka Dot Wedding team is honoured to conduct our work on the land of the BoonWurrung, WoiWorung, Eora & Kuring-gai people. We honour the Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander custodians of the land, and we pay our respects to Elders past and present.
Hello and welcome. I’m so excited to introduce you to today’s guest Will Burton. Will married his beloved John in a very special Sydney ceremony, and we were lucky enough to feature it on Polka Dot Wedding. And what stood out to us about the day was how unique it was.
They got married on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for starters, but also how personal it was. They really made decisions that they loved and that was surrounding themselves with what was important to them. And, you know, that’s the kind of story we love to tell. So I can’t wait for you to hear our chat with Will. Hello Will thank you so much for joining us.
Will Burton:
Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m very happy to be here.
Dorothy Polka:
I am so thrilled to talk to you today about your and John’s wedding, because it was, I still remember it was such a favourite of ours, of getting married on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, which was such an unusual thing, but then also the way that you ran your day. So I’m really excited to talk to you about it today.
Will Burton:
Totally. Yeah. Thank you for inviting me. I actually edit and promote a lot of podcasts as part of my role, but this is my debut as a guest. So thank you for having me.
Dorothy Polka:
Oh my gosh. So you’ll probably be able to tell me all the things I’m not doing, right!
So, tell me about you and John? And I know the story that where you got together is a bit long. So tell me about when you met and what you are both doing with your life now and about both of you.
Will Burton:
Oh, absolutely. So we actually met back in 2011. I was 17. John was 18 and we lived at opposite ends of the UK actually, which wasn’t ideal. But as soon as John finished university, he moved down to Cornwall and we got our first place together. And then kind of fast forward five years, I suppose.
And we are both in fairly high pressure jobs and decided, wait, we’re too young to be for this. So, set off on the gap year that we never had, I suppose, and then spent some time in Southeast Asia and travelled the coast of Australia from Perth in an old postal van, actually. But then when we hit Sydney, we completely fell in love with the place and you know, decided we wanted to stay and the rest is history, I suppose.
Dorothy Polka:
Oh my gosh. So you’re, you’re staying in Sydney forever. What do you think?
Will Burton:
Well, you know, obviously everything’s down to visas and bits and pieces like that, but we, yeah, we would love to have this as our base. Totally.
Dorothy Polka:
So not only did you fall in love with Sydney, but you got married on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, as I said. So how did you both decide you wanted to get married in the first place?
Will Burton:
Yeah, sure. So, well, John actually proposed to me while we were on our travels. So it’s quite a funny story. He got the ring when we were still living in the UK and carried it with him in his ruck sack. We had a backpack each and he had it in his bag for about nine months waiting for the perfect opportunity. And he ended up proposing on Magnetic Island on our ninth anniversary, which came as a real surprise because we were living out of a van on a diet of noodles. So, it was, it was really special.
Dorothy Polka:
So he’d been saving for the ring obviously. And, oh, did he propose with the ring? I should ask.
Will Burton:
Yeah. So he brought it with him for the whole trip. He’d had it in his bag waiting for the right time, so, wow. Yeah. Very romantic.
Dorothy Polka:
So how did you decide how you wanted to get married and how many guests you were going to invite and how your day was going to go? How, where did that all come from?
Will Burton:
Yeah, totally. So as we decided to actually get married, We’d actually stayed in one New Year’s Eve. We were both feeling under the weather, uh, funnily enough. So it must have been 2020, and we were talking about, you know, what do we wanna do this year? And I think one of us said, well, should we get married? And, you know, it was a hard decision to make knowing that our family and the friends and family and friends in the UK, wouldn’t be with us. But the time felt right. And due to COVID and visas, we weren’t sure how long it would be until we could get home. So we bit the bullet and we said, let’s do it.
Dorothy Polka:
I love that. And your wedding, like I said, was a different format for most of the day. So you started by getting married on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where you had your ceremony and then you went to a hotel. Was that for lunch or breakfast?
Will Burton:
Yeah. So a wedding breakfast. So after the ceremony on the Bridge with 10 guests, we just had a really intimate reception at Park Hyatt. And from there we then hired a bar on Oxford street and we invited all of our other friends for a big party. So it was very good.
Dorothy Polka:
You danced the night away? Yes, I think the after-party or the bar was my favourite part, because it just looked like so much fun.
Will Burton:
Yeah. I mean, we had fire dancers, drag queens. It was definitely a night we won’t forget.
Dorothy Polka:
Where did you even start with your planning, like what was the first thing you booked and where did you kick it off?
Will Burton:
Yeah, because of COVID, our dates changed a few times, so it actually evolved quite a lot. Each time we would change our (date), it was quite a good kind of practice run because we’d organise everything and then we’d have a chance to rearrange it again. So we started with the Bridge. We were actually looking for a smaller venue, but then I had this wild idea and texted John at work one day and I said, Why don’t we do it on the Bridge? He just thinks, oh God, here we go again. But yeah. So we put that in and then kind of built everything else around it.
Dorothy Polka:
Did you set out with your day to have a certain vibe or mood in mind? Like I know couples want a really relaxed day or really formal or whatever. Yeah. Did you have any mood.
Will Burton:
Yeah, definitely. We knew I suppose that we wanted it to feel really relaxed and prevent it being controlled by too many time constraints. But obviously that’s unavoidable one your wedding day because there are so many moving parts, but we wanted it to flow as naturally as possible and not be rushing from one place to another. So as much as possible, we kept timeframes open with the vendors and it really helped to make the day just feel easy and natural.
Dorothy Polka:
I think that happens too, with the way that you planned your day being such a rolling sort of grazing, going from here to there kind of thing as well. Sure. One of the things I love most about your day is how you use flowers because you had a bouquet, which I think more grooms need bouquets. It worked so well with your beautiful suits and the tones of the day. Can you tell me about all the details, the let’s start with the flowers?
Will Burton:
Yeah, absolutely. So with, with the flowers, we actually wanted to use as many local businesses we could, which we were already kind of customers of. I walked past Merchant and Green in Redfern most days, and they always have the most stunning variety of flowers. The staff are always really friendly. So it felt like a good fit. We actually went in one day with a few friends and met with Chris, the owner, and we had a rough idea of what we wanted. We wanted lots of leafy greens and Australian natives. And honestly, he’s so talented. He was walking around the store, grabbing a bit of this and a bit of that and just created this bouquet and buttonhole right in front of us, which was exactly what we had in mind. So John had a lighter suit and mine was darker.
So we wanted our button holes to kind of contrast against those. And I wanted to have lots of lavender throughout the arrangements because it reminds me of my Mum, and he nailed it. They were perfect. So yeah, Merchant and Green ended up doing our bouquet, the flowers for our wedding party and ourselves. And then they decorated the private room at Park Hyatt as well. And then for the cake, we used Black Velvet, which again, we’d used for events in the past for birthdays and things. We’d always found them super reliable. Friendly and the cake is insane from them. So, we met with them and they turned, I suppose, our scribbles and our ideas into reality.
Dorothy Polka:
Your cake was a geode, wasn’t it with crystal detail?
Will Burton:
Yes. Yes. So we had three tiers in the end with a geode design on the top, which was really detailed and really interesting. And then a semi naked tier and a marble tier. So, and credit to where credit’s due to them. I think they are probably one of the only vendors that doesn’t triple the price because we use the ‘w’ word.
Dorothy Polka:
What flavours did you have in your cake? Tell me.
Will Burton:
So we had, I think the bottom was chocolate and then salted caramel and red velvet. So we got a bit of everything; and I mean, yeah, we’ve only just finished eating it six months on; we had it all chopped up in the freezer and yeah, it lasted us a long time.
Dorothy Polka:
I freeze a lot of cake and there’s something about having cake in your freezer that’s very handy. It’s pretty good on a Friday night. Yeah.
Will Burton:
And we’ve got even touched the top tier, so that’s still frozen. So we’re hoping when John’s family are hoping to come up next year, we’re hoping to be able to share that with them then. So, oh, how cool. We thought that was a nice idea.
Dorothy Polka:
And each of your guests got a really special wedding favour too, didn’t they?
Will Burton:
Yes. So my friend Todd has a small design business and he creates prints. So he created place settings for all of our guests, which was really nice. Something for them to keep.
Dorothy Polka:
It was really special. Did you have any other really personal touches? You included sentimental moments and that kind of thing that you honoured people with?
Will Burton:
No, not necessarily, but I did have my brother send over some cuff links that my grandparents bought me for my 16th birthday. So that was lovely. It was like I had them with me on the day. So that was a really nice touch.
Dorothy Polka:
So you’ve got you both wore beautiful suits, sage and a kind of a taupe colour. I’d love to hear more about how you (chose them). Did you have them custom made – how did you go about choosing your suits?
Will Burton:
Yeah, well actually, funnily enough, the suits is where we actually started planning. I feel like it can be a bit of a minefield when you set about planning your wedding, working out what decisions need to make made first, but choosing the suits was a really nice way to kind of begin and then it set a good tone for the other decisions that we needed to make. Yeah. We decided if we chose our suits, we could work the colour scheme around that, which luckily worked out. I mean, it could have gone horribly wrong, but yeah, John went for a beige three-piece with a very subtle check in it and I love greens. So I found a gorgeous woollen beige sage suit and they paired nicely together. And then from there, we bought pocket squares and ties from Etsy that kind of tied the suits together. Yeah. So then they merged.
Dorothy Polka:
So you obviously didn’t wear the suits up on top of the bridge? Did you (wear them) underneath your jumpsuits?
Will Burton:
No. There were a few changes during the day. So it was actually a really nice day because the sun was out, but there was a bit of a breeze. So I was really worried that walking around for two hours, having our photos done before. We would be a bit sweaty, but then, because of the nice breeze, it kept us cool. And then we changed to go off onto the Bridge and then changed when we came down again. Yeah.
Dorothy Polka:
Yeah. I don’t think I’d want to be climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge in a suit.
Will Burton:
No, absolutely not.
Dorothy Polka:
So your photographer was Anton from Across the Forest and I want to know, how did you convince him to climb the Bridge and how did you also find him? In the world of (weddings), I think we’re one of the most saturated countries for wedding photographers in the world. So how did you find Anton in the first place?
Will Burton:
Yeah. Well, if I make a single recommendation on this podcast, it is ‘Across the Forest’. I mean, Anton was amazing. And I often say to people that he just felt like another guest on the day he fitted right in, it is a pretty scary process choosing a photographer for such an important day.
I mean, it’s probably, yes, the most daunting decision that we felt we had to make because, yeah, they’re responsible for capturing all those little moments that you want to remember. Yeah. So we actually had a zoom call with Anton and Raya in the middle of a lockdown, I believe. And we just clicked straight away.
They kind of treated us as if we were their first ever client and really understood what we wanted from the day and what we wanted to capture. And that was really important to us. So it was kind of sign sealed, delivered, and that they were gonna do it. Uh, in actual fact, the bridge climb had already been booked at that point. And due to the legalities of climbing the bridge with a photographer, we decided it kind of wasn’t worth it, but Anton was so keen to climb that we actually, changed our plans and we sorted it out so that he could come with us.
Dorothy Polka:
I think it was well and truly worth it. Because your photos are really consistent throughout the day. And it’s just such a special memory to be able to have that captured.
Will Burton:
Yeah. totally, and actually one of our favourite images from the day is actually up on the Bridge. So we’re so pleased we did it. I mean there’s a bit of red tape around photography up there because, uh, he had to be accompanied by a member of staff from New South Wales transport. There are lots of details. As I said, one of our favourite photos is us, all of the wedding, guests walking up the bridge with the Opera House behind us and Anton’s captured perfectly from the other side. So yeah, it was a last-minute decision, but a very good one.
Dorothy Polka:
Did you have anything in your ceremony that you wanted specifically? Or did you have readings or, I mean, I don’t know – do you have a time limit on top of the Harbour Bridge? Can you even have readings?
Will Burton:
Yeah. They were really flexible with us. Really helpful at Bridge Climb. They give you as much time, really, as you want up there, we didn’t have any readings as such, but we wrote our own vows and we worked with the celebrant. He wrote such a gorgeous ceremony. It was really lovely. He really took a lot of care and interest in our background, and our story and kind of weaved that through the ceremony. So yeah, Brad did a great job. And then as I said, we had our own vows. Yeah. It was very special.
Dorothy Polka:
It just looked like such a great day. So you were married by ABC by Brad. I wanted to know. Well, who are the the other vendors that you would recommend or I presume Brad is on that list.
Will Burton:
Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So we couldn’t have been any luckier with everyone that we chose. You know, we were very lucky, but apart from Merchant and Green, Park Hyatt, Bridge Climb, Across the Forest, that we’ve already mentioned. The two brothers that run AHW Studio created the most perfect wedding bands for us. They have a couple of stores in Sydney, one on the rocks and one in the QVB and yeah, and also big thanks to Brad, I suppose, for not running for the hills, when we said we wanted to get married on the top of the Bridge.
Dorothy Polka:
Did you have to convince these vendors or did they, were they jumping for joy at the idea of doing something (special).
Will Burton:
It was a bit of a mix. So for some of them we reached out before we knew what our venue was. And for others like Brad, we reached out to Brad, he’s a friend of a friend. So we kind of knew him already and we thought he’d be the perfect person to do the ceremony.
But so we initially reached out to Brad and said, look, we’d love you to be our celebrant. And we’re not sure what our plans are yet. And he jumped at the chance. He was really, really keen to be involved. And then one day I called him and I said, Brad, I’ve had this idea and he was shocked but he was obviously really keen for it. I mean, as a celebrant, I’m not sure that you get an opportunity like that very often.
Dorothy Polka:
So you’ve got to jump on those things I think.
Will Burton:
Yes, definitely. And he did. And I think he won’t forget that one in a hurry.
Dorothy Polka:
So I wanted to talk beyond the pretty because I love the pretty, but I feel like there’s more to your story. So did you have any obstacles with planning your wedding?
Will Burton:
Sure. No. I’m going to, I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna mention Covid…
Dorothy Polka:
Of course, of course the elephant in the room.
Will Burton:
I know. But our date changed three times due the pandemic. But apart from that, yeah, we can’t really complain. I mean, it was a really seamless process and we just really loved planning it. I actually miss it. I’m begging my friends to get married so that I can help them.
Dorothy Polka:
Well, I feel like when you have three parties to plan like your ceremony and your breakfast and the after-party, like you (did), it’s so much fun to plan that stuff and just do what you want to do, which is, you know what it’s all about. So as a LGBTQI couple, did you seek out to find LGBTQI-friendly vendors? Or did you have issues around that? Or how did you start to do that? Did it even factor into what you were thinking about?
Will Burton:
Yeah, very good question. I mean, absolutely. It may be 2022, but it is still very much at the front of your mind when organising a same-sex wedding. Mostly we went with LGBTQI+ vendors or companies that we had our own personal experience with already, but as a whole, we were treated equally and the same as any other people getting married. Although I will tell your story and I won’t name the venue, but it’s a very prestigious hotel in Sydney. We booked the honeymoon suite and the response I received by email was ‘Thank you Will we can’t wait to welcome you and your wife’ now.
Dorothy Polka:
Oh, no!
Will Burton:
I know it’s not the end of the world. We’re very lucky to be living in, you know, such a free country. And I know many others across the world have much bigger issues to deal with when it comes to sexuality, but it does leave a bit of a sour taste in your mouth when you’re spending a large sum of money and yeah, when you’re arguably and one of the most LGBT friendly cities in the world. Yeah. And, you know, I don’t blame that particular member of staff at all. They would’ve meant really well I’m sure, but I do feel management in all sectors, have a responsibility to prevent that sort of thing. Especially when we’re five years post-legalisation of same sex marriage. So there’s a little bit of work to be done.
Dorothy Polka:
Yeah and it’s such an easy change as well. It’s just that you actually have to consciously go and think about making that change. And I don’t think that has been on people’s radar, sadly.
What do you wish that the wedding industry, as an LGBTQ couple could do to make themselves more LGBTQ friendly? We did just obviously talk about that. So it’s obvious in the sake of like, intake forms, et cetera, making sure you’re not using bride and groom, et cetera, and wife and husband, but what do you feel that we could do as an industry to make it better?
Will Burton:
Yeah, you know, I think we’re making amazing progress, thanks to so many people before us, but as I said, it’s really a simple case of speaking to the teams on the floor. And I mean that as a management responsibility and removing those assumptions, that it’s always a bride and groom, it can be damaging for their business, you know, as well. So they should really take note and credit to you at Polka Dot and I’ve seen your diversity & inclusivity guidelines, and it really is as simple as, you know, implementing something like that, just to help the community feel welcomed and acknowledged.
Dorothy Polka:
Yep, do you have any other thoughts that now you’re on the other side of planning your wedding, you wish you had known, or you wish the industry had done differently or, I suppose your thoughts about it all at the other side?
Will Burton:
Yeah, not necessarily. I think if one thing I have taken from planning a wedding is that your budget needs to be a lot more generous from the beginning because it’s a lot more expensive than you might imagine. And yes, there’s lots of bits that you may not consider in the beginning, but yeah, I think you’ve just gotta kind of go out there and do make the decisions for yourself and not base any of your decisions on other people or doing things just because they should be done at weddings is my kind of takeout from it, because then you’ll have no regrets and you’ll have a really great day.
Dorothy Polka:
And I think that’s what I loved about your day is it just was so fun. And I know that it’s so easy to get swept up in all that stress of the day. So how did you even get rid of that stress? And how did you keep focused on what was important to you both?
Will Burton:
Yeah, I think it’s a fair point, but I also think because our family and the majority of our family weren’t there. We, started the process doing it un-traditionally, you know, in the sense of, well, we’re doing it this way, because this is the way we want to do it. So we were kind of already on the right track when we started planning. We were kind of in that head space of we’re doing this our way, but yeah, I really do think just having that conscious mindset all the way through, as soon as you’re making that, this is what you and your partner want, and it’s not, you’re not doing it for any other reason than that.
Dorothy Polka:
I love it. I loved every bit of your day and I’m so thankful I got to talk to you today about it. Oh, thank you. What is next for you both now, I hear you did say that you might be having a family celebration. Are you going to plan another wedding? Here’s your excuse?
Will Burton:
I know. I know. I would absolutely love to. And without a doubt, we’ll do something. When we get back in the UK, where we’d love to get back next year and have a celebration there, maybe do it all again. We’ve just moved house here in Sydney, actually. So we’re busy. Kind of decorating and making a home for ourselves here, but yet outside of that travel is definitely back on the cards and we’d love to get some trips booked to the UK. And I’m also hoping to see a friend in New Zealand in December, but I’ve not seen since 2019. And since then she’s had a baby, so it’ll be a real treat and you never know.
Dorothy Polka:
And the baby will probably be running around by the time you get there.
Will Burton:
Exactly.
Dorothy Polka:
So if you had any piece of advice that you could offer up to couples planning their day right now, what would you say? I know, I haven’t warned you about this question. It just came to me.
Will Burton:
Do it your way. Honestly, don’t worry about anyone else. Just do it exactly how you want to do it. You know, weddings cost a lot of money, a once in a lifetime experience and just don’t be restricted by those wedding norms and just use the vendors that you know, and trust and you’ll have a great day.
Dorothy Polka:
All really great pieces of advice. I feel like you do you, and yeah, definitely get rid of all the stress and everything is the most important thing after all. And I feel like that was really evident in what you and John did on your day.
Will Burton:
Oh, thank you very much.
Dorothy Polka:
Thank you so much for joining us today. I’m so thrilled to have chatted to you and to dive a little bit more into what was not only are unique, but really personal wedding.
Will Burton:
Oh, thank you very much. It’s been great recording a podcast, as I said, it’s my debut. So thank you.
Dorothy Polka:
I know. So don’t pull it a part too much when you listen.
Will Burton:
Not all. I promise.
Dorothy Polka:
Thank you so much.
Now we know you’re gonna wanna see more of Will and John’s wedding. So if you hop on over to polkadotwedding.com/podcast, we’ve linked this episode over there. In that guide, you’ll also find the full show notes for this episode, including the written transcription.
We would love your reviews on today’s episode. So make sure you pop over and leave us a review and then head on over to Instagram and tell us what you think. This is our first episode. So we’re really excited to launch this new project and we would really love to have you on board for the next ones.
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