Rustic Farm Elopement - Polka Dot Wedding

Steph and Muiru wanted minimal fuss for their wedding. They chose a quiet country farm stay, chose flowers and cake, and invited just their inner circle (including their daughter) to bear witness. Staying true to what they wanted, the running theme throughout the day, and the basis for Steph’s advise to those of you yet to tie the knot. “Make sure your wedding day is all about what you want, what will make it special for you. The day will fly by and I think it’s so important that you get to enjoy your special day together.”

Describing the day as “Rustic, warm, minimalistic”, the couple invited Oh Wild along to document their day. From the farm ceremony to the sunset portraits, this is a day that is simple and utterly romantic.

The couple met by chance, Steph, who was on a working holiday visa from the Netherlands, crossing paths with Muiru when she was visiting South Australia. She shares “After I worked for 6 months as an au pair in Brisbane I decided I wanted to extend my visa for another year and therefore needed to do 3 months of farm work. I found work in Victor Harbor, Adelaide.

A girl that I was going to do farm work with picked me up from the airport and we stayed in a backpackers in Glenelg. That night she took me to a house party and that’s where I met Muiru. Later that night we went out to the Moseley and that’s where we had our first kiss. We exchanged numbers and stayed in contact throughout the 3 months in Victor Harbor. He also visited me a couple of times when we were both free. After I finished the farm work I left Adelaide to travel the west coast up to Darwin, we stayed in contact all this time and after three months in Darwin I decided to come back to Adelaide to see if there was something more, and there was.”

Muiru asking Steph to marry him, completely by surprise, “When my second year Visa had expired I had to leave Australia so Muiru and I travelled in India together before visiting the Netherlands. I worked there for six months to pay for our partner visa and Muiru went back to Australia after four months. I returned on the 3rd of September, for good. Two years later, on the 3rd of September, Muiru took us (me and our daughter) out to a brewery in Myponga (smiling Samoyed brewery) and that’s when he asked me to marry him. Totally unexpected!”

Full of rustic country charm, the couple found a sweet farm stay Sandalwood Shearing Shed, to not only spend the night but also as their wedding venue. Says Steph “We chose to get married at an Airbnb to keep the costs low. We found this cute farm stay that looked very cosy and we thought it would be perfect for photos.”

“We held the ceremony in the middle of a sheep paddock, so I just walked through the paddock while music was playing.”

The ceremony was intimate and simple. Steph recalled “We wanted our ceremony to be intimate, fun and chill. We only said our vows to each other and this part was nerve-wracking!”

The flowers on the day were styled by Ethereal Botanica, coordinating with the sweet and simple wedding cake made by Chlo’s Vegan Club. “Somehow naturally the colour theme of our elopement turned into purple, Muiru’s pants were maroon and the kid’s outfits had lots of purple and maroon. So I decided to match the flowers with their outfits.
I decided to trust the florist to make a beautiful bouquet and she did. The boys wore a brooch and our daughter had a flower crown”.

Steph and Muiru’s photographer? All the praise from the newlyweds! “Oh Wild is amazing, very friendly, fun, lots of humour, they made us feel relaxed, they made sure everything happened on time, nothing was rushed, they instructed us with certain poses and it just felt as if they were our friends. Also in the lead-up to the day they were our wedding planners, they arranged almost everything for us and that was such a big help and something we did not expect from our photographer at all.”

Says Steph of their romantic “first dance” by sunset light, “We did not really have the first dance, but we did dance on the cliff in Second Valley while having our photoshoot. The song was Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect”.