Mid-Century Retro Wedding At Home

We’re envisioning Captain & Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together” as we scroll through Briony & Zach’s mid-century retro wedding at home, captured by Kat from Red Eclectic. The couple tells, “We wanted a retro, mid-century modern/palm springs desert-esque, 1970’s vibe for the wedding. We wanted to feel relaxed, cool and calm, and also really highlight the natural beauty of our home and the area we live in. Our home was built in 1974 and has some stunning mid-century modern and quintessential 1970s design details throughout, we wanted to really lean into the 1970s and let our home be the backdrop of our day. Our furniture and decor style is MCM/1970’s as well so we used what we had and sourced items we knew we’d want to re-purpose again in our home!” Briony and Zach tell us how they met, and about their very cool and chill wedding day…

We had mutual friends who really thought we’d hit it off and almost had to force us to meet. But once we did finally meet, we decided really quickly that we wanted to be together and within a few days of meeting we had made it official. Within a couple of weeks, we were living together, and we have been together ever since.

We got engaged after 7 years together. For a few years, we’d talked about someday getting married and Zach had said he’d want to be the one to propose. He’d arranged for his friend who is an amateur photographer to come along with us one morning to our favourite beach at Point Peron in Rockingham, under the guise of practising his skills and taking some shots of our dogs. Zach and I were walking along the top of a large rock formation looking over the water, and he stopped what he was doing, pulled me in, and started telling me how he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me before he got down on one knee and asked the question.

I wanted something that would accentuate my figure and make me feel confident, but without compromising on comfort. My dress from Bridal by Aubrey Rose was all lace, with intricate floral detail, but so so comfortable! When looking for dresses, it was the first dress I picked in the selection and I initially loved it so much I accidentally picked it twice! The boutique I went to really made the experience wonderful. I had no idea what style I wanted, and I managed to find my dress on the first day of looking.

We chose sunflowers for the bouquets, they are my favourite flower. We got them the day before the wedding from a vendor at our local Sunday market, and Zach put the bouquets together himself. We used greenery from our backyard, mostly ghost gum leaves, for table decor.

Zach wore a brown tailored suit with a simple white shirt from Politix, and a thrifted retro tie. He wanted to wear something that really fit the vibe we were going for, but also something he could wear again if he wanted to.

God Only Knows by The Beach Boys. Pet Sounds is one of my favourite albums, and this song has always had a special place in my heart.

We got married at our home in Lesmurdie. We own our home and have a stunning half-acre block with a backyard full of native trees, fruit trees, and a gorgeous 50-year-old grapevine. We have a huge gum tree in our backyard that was the perfect backdrop for our ceremony, and we held our reception in the near patio area where our grapevine lives. Our portraits were taken at Lesmurdie Falls, it’s not far from our house and is within a beautiful National Park. The park is full of huge granite rock formations and little creeks and rivers.

We really wanted our dogs to be included, they were there during our ceremony and our first portraits we had were with them. It was so special having them there with us.

We wanted to feel relaxed and have fun, since we were having it at home we opted for a little more informal ceremony, we didn’t have any readings and we wrote our own vows. We had our two dogs there with us as well, we really wanted to feel like we were at our home.

Both our photographer and our celebrant, Sally Bruce, really made our day special. Sally put together our ideal ceremony and really honed in on what we wanted, which was to have an intimate day with our closest family and friends. During the signing part of our ceremony, she suggested we go for a walk and just be with each other which was such a great idea and it meant we were able to really be in the moment and talk to each other about how we were feeling without anyone else watching.

Our photographer Kat from Red Eclectic was absolutely fantastic. She was fun and down-to-earth, and she really captured our day in the perfect way. We are so pleased with all the photos she took, we have such a range from wonderful family and friend photos, lots of fun and sweet candid moments, and so many incredible portraits as well. We could not recommend her enough!

As a little something special – my friends call me “B”, and Zach wore a little brass bee lapel pin which was very cute.

My favourite part of the planning process was thrifting for everything we needed. I love vintage and retro design and loved curating a style that was exactly what we wanted and not necessarily something just selected from a brochure.

We bought a ton of disposable cameras and asked our guests to take photos of us and each other throughout the reception. We love looking back at old photos and we felt it would be such fun to look through all the photos and different perspectives we’ll have of such an important time in our life.

We DIY’ed as much as possible. All the table decor was all DIY and was either ours already, or items we thrifted or bought second-hand. We used what furniture we already had, and borrowed and hired what we needed. My bouquet and our invitations were DIY, and even our cake stand and cake knife were thrifted vintage pieces.

Our favourite photo from the day was the one of us “cheersing” our drinks on our lounge chairs outside.

Really enjoy the moment and the journey, it’s easy to get caught up in what you think you should do because it’s ‘the way’ and forget about what you might actually want. I’m glad we took the time to really decide how we wanted to get married and focused on our wants and needs before anything else.

Having it at our home, having our dogs and cats with us, having a small group consisting of only our closest friends and family there, having our ceremony under our beautiful gum tree, and being able to have our portrait photos taken so close to our home where we can visit whenever we want.