Amy & Liam were blessed with picture-perfect weather on their November wedding day – in fact, the only weekend of the month it didn’t rain.  But the thing is, not only was the weather glorious for these two, but the day itself was glorious. Inspired by their love of live music and festivals, there could be no more natural theme for their wedding, than a wedding festival. And so, Wedstock 22 was born.

As beautifully evidenced by every glorious photo captured by Emma Faith Photography, Amy and Liam went to town with the festival vibes bringing in everything from food trucks to tipis, wrist bands to fairy-lit arches, epic DJ’ing to hot doughnuts on the dance floor.  Explains Amy “We tried to capture the feeling of dusk at a music festival crossed with a romantic garden party wedding”. The only question is, where can we buy a ticket? Scroll on for the story!

“Liam always knew that he wouldn’t be your typical black suit kind of guy,” explains Amy of Liam’s incredible watermelon pink suit made by Joseph Uzumcu. “He spent hours and hours looking at suit inspiration and had no luck until he saw a pink (or rose quartz) safari suit. We knew there wasn’t a stockist for something like this in Adelaide and after going to a few tailors trying to find someone with the right fabric and who was up to the challenge we found Joseph Uzumcu.

Sometimes I feel like with weddings the groom doesn’t always get to showcase their personality, but this suit is Liam through and through. It’s bright and fun, formal but casual and perfect to dance in. We both have to admit, we double-guessed the suit up until the wedding day, but I am so glad that we trusted our guts. Liam loved having a suit that surprised everyone and as a DJ he has gotten to wear it again on numerous occasions.”

The bride wore a beautiful floral wedding gown by designer Bridal Fusion by Masica. She tells “I have to admit, the type of dress I ended up going with was probably not one I would have picked a year prior. Knowing that our wedding was going to be festival themed, with lots of colour, big flags and a groom in pink. I knew that being in a plain white dress wouldn’t have felt right.

After looking online, I never really saw exactly what I wanted but bits and pieces. I had seen some embroidered lace dresses, but none that captured the fun of a floral dress. I remember going into Bridal Fusion by Mascia and saying that I had been toying with the idea of colourful floral lace but assumed that it would not be something that they had on hand. By a stroke of fate, they had the most perfect lace in the shop that matched our colour palette and Liam’s suit perfectly. From that moment, I knew this custom dress was exactly what I had been looking for. After countless appointments and individually placed flowers, I ended up with the most beautiful dress that captured the vibe of the day. I am still in love with the dress and sometimes put it back on just for dressing up!

I also wore my mother’s veil from when she married my father. I always knew that if I were to wear a veil I would want it to be the one that my mother wore. Luckily, it matched my dress perfectly and I am so glad that I wore it.”

The beautiful flowers for the day? Put together by Amy’s sister Elizabeth.

Amy walked down the aisle with her father to “A Moment Apart” by Odeza. When choosing the song to walk down the aisle to, we knew that lyrics were important and we wanted a big dramatic entry.”

The feel of the ceremony was very important to these two, explains Amy, “We’d been to a few weddings where we had just felt like the celebrant didn’t know the couple very well. So we knew early on in our planning that we wanted to look at alternative options. We ended up having my Aunt and Godmother Susan marry us. We had a celebrant there on the day as well to do the legal side of things.

It was so perfect as she has known me my whole life but then also knows Liam really well. Her family values matched our own so we ended up with a ceremony that felt really true to who we were as individuals and who we wanted to be as a married couple. We wanted a fairly short ceremony as there was a party to get to! I think we were done in about 15 minutes,”

Even Amy’s wedding ring has its own special story. “When we got engaged it was just before my parents were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. As a present for my Mum, my Dad had upgraded her wedding band from the plain white gold band to one with diamonds. With both of my sisters already married, it felt like fate and Mum & Dad offered for me to have her original wedding band as mine. Thankfully my sisters didn’t have any objections and so my wedding band is one that is full of forty years of love and devotion.”

Love the dreaminess of these photos? Fall in love with photographer Emma like Amy and Liam did! “We had Emma from Emma Faith Photography shoot our wedding. We met her at a friend’s wedding the year prior and just loved her style and energy. We did an engagement shoot with her leading up to the day to get the nervous energy and awkward poses (our fault not hers) out of the way.

On the day Emma was so amazing, I have a big family with lots of people to wrangle and I can’t express just how incredible Emma was. We have a few small nieces and nephews who got very camera shy on the day and to help get the perfect shots she befriended the smaller kids and got them involved with taking some photos which gained their trust!”

What kind of venue allows you to host your very own Wedfest? Turns out the beautiful Barossa Valley venue Lindsay Wine Estate was up for the challenge. “We knew years before we were engaged that we wanted to get married at Lindsay Wine Estate. After going there a few times, Liam became the resident DJ so we got to see lots of events on the Lindsay grounds. This meant that even before becoming engaged we knew how we would like our wedding to look there. Matt & Will were so amazing in helping us to execute our dream day, and all with delicious wine on top. I know our day wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the LWE crew.”

Amy’s favourite detail? The Wedstock letters! She tells “I knew this little touch would make all the difference in truly capturing that Festival feeling. Liam is a cabinet maker by trade and after getting permission from the boss was able to cut out large MDF letters on the CNC. I then painted these to match our colour palette over several weekends.”

The legalities done, it was time to start the party! “For us, we wanted our wedding to feel like an arts festival cross garden party” explains Amy. “If you have ever had the chance to go to WOMADelaide, it was the feeling of being under the festoon lights and flags at dusk that we really wanted to capture.

Instead of a marquee, Liam suggested a Tipi, we sourced 15 extra large flags which happened to fit in our colour pallet perfectly and had them placed around the venue, plus the festoon lights for that festival feel. We had a food truck (Gang Gang) serving burgers for dinner and a hot doughnut van (Van Dough) for dessert. The only thing that didn’t feel like a festival was the toilets, we did joke about getting portaloos in for a laugh but we’re glad we didn’t commit that hard to the theme!”

“Our favourite little bonus were the custom fabric festival wristbands we had made for everyone to wear and keep afterwards. They were handed out when people moved from the ceremony to the reception”.

The couple did their first dance slightly differently. “Our first dance was to This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)” by Natalie Cole. We knew we didn’t want a slow song, and wanted a much more upbeat (song). It felt like such a search to find the right song as making sure the lyrics matched was important to us as well. When we remembered this song, everything just felt right.

Whilst we both love to get on the dance floor, we felt nervous about performing our first dance with all our loved ones watching on. So instead our MC invited everyone to the dance floor following the speeches and we had all of our wedding guests join us for our first dance. I could not recommend doing this any higher, we felt so surrounded by love and as a bonus, it kicked off the dance floor for the rest of the night!”

Not a fan of cake? No worries, just bring Van Dough to the party! Explains Amy “We knew we didn’t want to do the traditional cake, and a key part of a lot of festivals for us is getting a hot cinnamon doughnuts at the end of the day. So at dessert time, we had a hot doughnut van rock up. It was the perfect hot treat after being on the dancefloor!”

Even Liam had plenty of inspired ideas for the day, tells Amy “After attending Illuminate Adelaide. Liam had seen this amazing light arch which was used as an entrance to the bar, after looking closer he realised that it would be easy for him to build. So he made this incredible triangular light arch which was at the entrance to the Tipi, once the sun went down it looked magical.”

With music at the core of what these two love to do, the dance floor? Incredible! “Liam has been a vinyl DJ for 8 years now (The Captain), explains Amy,  and a big part of the day for him was getting to get up on the decks and do a half-hour set. We had lots of people tell him in the lead-up to the wedding that there wouldn’t be time. But I am so glad that we made time for this!”

“As a present to the wedding party, we also had custom Wedstock crew-neck jumpers made up with the Wedstock Logo on the back. This is one of my favourite things, especially when we catch up and accidentally wear the same jumper!”

Congratulations on your marriage Amy & Liam! Thank you for sharing all of the beautiful details of your day with us. Thank you also to Emma Faith Photography for today’s beautiful images.