This bright modern wedding was the perfect celebration of their shared journey—a day filled with bold colours, personal touches, and an undeniable chemistry that has defined their relationship from the start. With a venue that felt like an escape from the city and florals that burst with vibrant hues, Michael and Joyeeta’s wedding was a true reflection of their modern love story. Every detail, from the handmade decorations to the heartfelt speeches, was crafted with care. Their wedding was not just a celebration but a beautiful tapestry of the life they’d built together.

Michael and Joyeeta matched on Tinder in 2017 after he super liked her profile, so in the eternal words of Avril Lavigne, “He super liked, and she swiped right back – can I make it any more obvious?”. Joyeeta was head over heels when she laid eyes on Michaels’s kind eyes and his Harry Potter costume. “His profile description just said “Swipe right, lean left” and mine just said “Sometimes charming, mostly awkward” so our tone was an instant match. Our very first conversation was centred around the niche topic of divesting from banks who fund fossil fuels, so… again, we knew pretty quickly that we had similar priorities and mindsets.”

After talking for a few weeks, Michael invited Joyeeta to join him at an LGBTQIA+ marriage rights rally when Australia was in the midst of our “Yes” campaign for marriage equality. Once the rally had ended, the date continued for a full 24 hours and included midnight pizza, a romantic moment in an Aldi aisle, and Michael making Joyeeta and her housemate a big breakfast the next morning. “We were falling for each other before it ended. That first date laid the foundations for our early relationship. We became active campaigners for the Yes Campaign, attending rallies and door-knocking together.”

Unfortunately for Michael, his proposal was off to a bumpy start when Joyeeta’s best friend accidentally gave away the surprise. With her clued in, Michael had to find a new way to be sneaky – and in the meantime, Joyeeta got more and more restless.

Each year Michael and Joyeeta spent Christmas with his family in Valentine, and she mentioned how special it would be to get engaged surrounded by all these people she loves so dearly. But when the holidays rolled around, Michael told her that the ring wouldn’t be ready by then despite his efforts. And while Joyeeta was crestfallen, Michael had his ruse in place! “Unbeknownst to me, the ring was already en route to Valentine. On December 27, 2022, we set out for what I believed were Thrower family photos. I joked that the picturesque setting would be perfect for a proposal before turning to leave and find the family. Before I could even get a step in, Michael pulled me back towards him and dropped to one knee. Surprise! Michael’s sister was hiding in a nearby bush snapping photos and was witness to the many, many, many times I swore in disbelief. Somewhere amongst the ‘f*&k’s, I said yes.”

Growing up with her best friend, Joyeeta had always dreamed of their wedding days, scrapbooking ideas, watching wedding movies each year and dreaming of wedding dress shopping. When it came to actually shopping around for her dress, she found the process exhausting. She ended up just buying a good enough dress and called it a day.

That night, she spent too much time tossing and turning before she decided that she regretted her decision. There was one dress by Ingrid Olic she kept coming back to that two out of three of her bridesmaids hated but she still couldn’t stop thinking about it. She looked around for stockists close by and booked a 10 am appointment that next morning. “I put the dress on and immediately knew it was ‘the one’. I got that butterflies in my stomach feeling that I’d always dreamed of and immediately purchased the one from Still White for just $1000 (RRP $6K!). I can’t believe how close I came to settling for something I didn’t feel beautiful in. Oh – the dress had pockets!”

In her wedding party, she had her best friends (and soulmate of 25 years) Stephanie, Divya, and Joanna, her high school best friends. “I originally wanted them in mismatched lilac, pink, and red, but this proved really difficult, so we ended up getting dresses from Azazie. Although I was a bit disappointed that my vision didn’t work out, the bridesmaids all said they felt like princesses, and that is ultimately all that mattered for me on the day!”

Michael wanted to have one surprise for Joyeeta on the day, so he decided that his suit would be that secret. “All she knew was that the suit was plain dark navy and made by Joe Black, which… was approximately 99% of the information. Honestly, we chose the suits because they were a good option within our price range and we wanted to pay for as much of the groomsmen’s suits as we could afford.”

He had Jack, his best friend of 29 years who also just happens to be his twin brother, and Harvey, one of Joyeeta’s high school friends who was the third wheel housemate on their first date! They both wore matching navy suits to Michael and had to figure out how to make Michael and Jack look different! Michael ended up wearing a bowtie from Joe Black, and Jack and Harvey both wore ties from Peggy and Finn.

A lot of the decor was DIY’d by Joyeeta and Michael, with the help of their family and friends. Joyeeta bought a Cricut and learned how to master it in under a year to create all the save the dates, invitations, place cards, bar signs, menus, hanger names, custom temporary tattoos, seating tags AND the wishing well. As if that’s not already impressive, she made all the gorgeous signs too! Not only did she Cricut each individual letter, but the welcome sign, acknowledgement of Country and seating charts were handmade in a retirement village workshop. “They were made by Michael’s grandma’s boyfriend, who used to be a carpentry hobbyist. It was such a wonderful bonding experience for us.”

They chose Audley Dance Hall as their wedding hub for the day after instantly falling in love with the venue! “We love the magic of turning the corner onto Farnell Ave and feeling like you’re hours and hours away from the city, despite being less than an hour from the CBD. The flow from the outdoor ceremony in the National Park to the hall was a huge draw card too. We are also both vegetarian and Audley had the most delicious vegetarian menu that we had seen in our venue hunt. Our venue coordinator, George, was amazing at accommodating every request and weird idea I had. From the piñata to the Bangladeshi sweets – George said yes to it all!”

All of these gorgeous bright florals were done by Emily Patricia Florals. “In our first chat, I expressed to her that I felt really bad and that I didn’t want native florals despite having the wedding set against such a beautiful, quintessential Aussie bush-scape. She assured me that the contrast between the landscape and my bright modern florals would be stunning.”

They’d also designed their own wedding newspapers as programs and printed them through Newspaper Club for guests to enjoy (and also doubled as a great sun shield!). Not only that but for the cocktail hour and pre-ceremony, guests could enjoy a craft session from their beads table. “We aren’t really even Swifties – this just seemed like an easy, accessible craft. This was such a fun touch and something that our friends are still talking about.”

Joyeeta walked down the aisle to Isabella Kensington’s cover of the emo classic “Still Into You” by Paramore with her sister on her arm. “This was so perfect. My sister is 10 years older than me and has always been the person who has cared for me the most in my life. I’m so, so glad she said yes to doing this for me.”

She also loved having all of her niblings be such a big part of the day! “My nephew had literally the best day of his life and I’m pretty sure he thought it was his party. He stood with me at the altar for a lot of the ceremony, and it was so sweet.”

Andrew Whitbread-Brown was their celebrant for the ceremony, and Joyeeta had so many praises to sing about his work. “He made our ceremony so personalised and went to great lengths to get to know us and tell our story. We are so grateful to him and his husband (and roadie!), Bill, who were such a dream team on the day!”

Overall, the ceremony was a beautiful reflection of their relationship – a super sappy love fest! Neither Joyeeta nor Michael are very religious, so they decided to have two speeches during the ceremony instead. The first was from Joyeeta’s sister, Shusmita, who welcomed Michael to the family, and Michael’s sister, Jess, who welcomed Joyeeta. “It was a beautiful way to incorporate other voices into the ceremony and spread the speeches out throughout the day.”

Joyeeta and her best friend Steph have been obsessed with all things weddings since they were children, so it’s no surprise they both loved the movie “Bride Wars”. “Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway’s characters have a blue flower pin that they both want to wear on their wedding day. When we were in our early teens, my MOH found an almost identical set of pins in her mother’s drawer and snuck them over to my house. We were BIG fans of the movie and saw ourselves in the two on-screen besties. We promised to wear them on our wedding days. I wore that hideous blue pin in my bun the whole day, and there’s only one blurry photo of it. I completely forgot to tell Callan!”

Our celebrant also included a garlanding ceremony inspired by Burmese and Bangladeshi traditions (my background). Although the couple typically garland each other or are garlanded by the longest-standing married couple, we opted to be garlanded by our mums. This was super special, too.

Callan Robison was the photographer for Joyeeta and Michael, and they wouldn’t have had it any other way. “Callan was a DREAM to work with. I knew from the beginning that our wedding was very different to the weddings he usually shoots (much more editorial and far less DIY!), but I was so in love with his ability to take such beautiful candid photos. We loved how true to life his colours are – it was important to us that the vibrancy of the wedding and surrounds came through in the photographs,” she explained.

“We felt instantly comfortable with him after our first meeting and loved how he prioritised us having a good time and interacting with our guests instead of having long, drawn-out portrait sessions. He never requested a shot list and we never felt the need to provide one because we felt confident that he would be able to capture the day (that said – I’m also sure he would have accommodated one if we’d sent it!). Callan was such a delight to work with and made us feel natural in front of the lens. His second shooter Miko was also amazing!”

Joyeeta’s favourite part of planning the wedding was how creative she got to be. “I think once I realised that a wedding is basically just the biggest, most fun party you’ll ever host, I began to really have fun with it. I am so lucky to have a partner like Michael, who supported all my wild ideas and helped me every step of the way. It was like doing a group project with my best friend on a topic of our own choice.”

The top five things that made their bright, modern wedding so special included:

“1. My sister flew in from Chicago with her two young kids. She would never miss it, but it doesn’t make it any less special.

2. The speeches were all so heartfelt and genuine. We just felt so enveloped in love the whole day.

3. Getting a coffee at the cafe under the Dance Hall before starting portraits was a great way to slow the day down. We got to be really in the moment and debrief with our bridal party. The caffeine kick helped too!

4. We opted to rent a huge AirBnB for the whole weekend with our bridal party, close friends and their partners. It was a proper party pad with a heated pool, games room (even a flying fox) and uninterrupted ocean views. We hosted our rehearsal dinner and recovery breakfast there with all of our family. It meant that we could come home after the wedding, continue the good vibes into the early hours, and spend the whole day vegging out in the pool with our nearest and dearest. HIGHLY recommend this for future couples.

5. All the personal touches and not worrying about tradition.”

Most of the decor in their reception space was DIY’d – including these incredible hanging decorations! “The biggest project was the decorations hanging above the dance floor. We bought fencing from Bunnings and about 100 plastic table clothes from eBay and got to work. It took a village – Michael did a very significant portion of these in the end. Michael’s mum, Cate, did quite a lot and so did my bridesmaid Divya. We started about 10 months before the wedding and took it very slow.”

Joyeeta’s sister also commissioned the artist Amy Hastings to create artwork to put onto these cute little matchbooks as party favours to represent their sparking origins on Tinder!

Michael took Joyeeta’s last name after the wedding, something they’d talked about at length. So they created a little neon sign for the ceremony to celebrate this – many guests had no idea about the change, so it was a very fun surprise! “We knew we wanted the same name but couldn’t come up with a new surname and decided that his surname didn’t gel with my first name.”

Their first dance was to “The Best” by Tina Turner, a song they picked from one of their favourite shows – Schitts Creek. “It reminds us both so much of our love that we’ve loved it ever since David was serenaded by his ‘butter-voiced beau’,” they shared.”

“We are both awkward dancers (one more than the other…), so we wanted something upbeat. We tried to learn a dance ourselves, but we had to concede and have Mat from Lead and Follow choreograph a short sequence for us. We practised it, thinking that I would change into my mini-dress before the dance, but at the last minute, I decided to wear my wedding dress because I was so in love with it, and it was so worth it despite a few little train slip-ups!”

For the final part of the night, Joyeeta changed into this stunning mini dress by Elliatt.

Instead of a traditional wedding cake, Joyeeta and Michael decided to have a cake piñata! “I was set on making this myself as well, but I came across a beautiful one on FB marketplace for only $30! A steal! We did have Bangladeshi sweets at the dessert table to honour my culture.”

Congratulations, Joyeeta and Michael, on pulling together this beautiful celebration of your love! And thanks to Callan Robinson for capturing and sharing it with us.