Earlier this year, we shared the story of Suzie Stevens’ incredible wedding gown, and today, we get to show you how the rest of her and Sam’s day unfolded – moody, glittering, full of love, and every bit as wonderful as you’d hope. Captured by the always-amazing Jackson Grant, their Melbourne winter wedding brought all the beauty. Think jewel tones, handmade touches, stormy skies and big, beaming newlywed smiles. We wanted to see every little detail the moment it landed in our inbox, and so thrilled we get to share it with you today on Polka Dot You. 

We met back when we were studying at Monash University. I was studying acting, and Sam was studying law. The departments were very close to each other, but we never met until a mutual friend had a house party and invited his high school friends and his new uni mates. After that, we kept spotting each other at uni and house parties and eventually got our acts together and went on a date. The rest is history.

We had been together for over 12 years when we got engaged, so to be honest, it was quite the shock for me as I had just assumed that it wasn’t on the cards. Sam had other plans.

Unbeknownst to me, he had contacted my parents to ask them for permission for us to get married, a gesture my dad was very touched by. He had also let his parents in on his plans to ask me to marry him the weekend we celebrated our anniversary during a CBD staycation in 2021.

We stayed at the QT and enjoyed trying new restaurants and seeing shows, but it was the morning of our last day in the city that Sam asked me to marry him in front of the GPO Building on Bourke St, one of my favourite pieces of architecture. As I had no idea this was going to happen, my initial reaction was that this was a gag, but after some reassuring that this wasn’t a funny bit, I said yes to Sam’s proposal (in front of a dozen or so families lining up to see the Myer Christmas windows).

Our wedding was the first Sunday in July at Rupert On Rupert in Collingwood. We didn’t have an overall theme to the wedding, but as we were getting married in the middle of winter, we wanted to lean into the dark, moody colour scheme by opting for jewel tones for the wedding party and decor. Once seeing the venue and the colours, a friend commented it was very Art Nouveau, and as a lover of The Kiss by Klimt, Art Nouveau was the perfect way to sum up the general vibe.

Sam wears suits every day for work, so we wanted something a little out of the ordinary, hence the grey waistcoat to contrast with the navy suit. We also needed matching suits for the six (!) groomsfolk. We found Formal Red in Richmond, who really looked after us. The tailors there were exceptional, offering a huge variety of styles to accommodate any budget or look. No ask was too much; they really knew how to make a person feel comfortable. Not to mention their showroom looks like something out of The Kingsman, so it was nice to have a glamorous experience for Sam whilst shopping for his suit.

Boutonnieres can be a bit of a hassle on the day to get right, so I made a pocket square out of leftover silk flowers for Sam to wear. It took no time at all to make and turned out so well.

I have to shout out Margauxe from The Distinctive Dame, who did my hair and makeup. I’ve known Margauxe for over a decade, and she is such a talented artist, but also has an incredibly soothing energy to be around. I got ready alone with the bridal party joining me later, all ready to go. I wanted to have a calm and easy morning without a lot of moving parts, so getting to spend a few hours in a room with my friend, doing glam and chatting away, I feel like it really set the day up for success.

I was so, so lucky to have a custom gown made by Hope & Harvest. You can read all about it here, it was so special that it deserved its write-up 😉

Originally, we were going to go down the route of just having a best man and maid of honour, as we were planning a small wedding. But as we were starting to lock in the big decisions, we realised we wanted to spend a lot of the day with our nearest and dearest, so we ended up with 12 people in our wedding party.

The groom’s party we call “the Superfriends”, as they have been Sam’s closest friends for many years. His brother was his best man. The bride’s party consisted of some of the kookiest and most stylish people to ever walk the earth, a gaggle of silly geese accompanied by my brother, who was my maid of honour.

How do you sum up Jackson Grant into words? The man is a firecracker. We have loved his work since he photographed a cousin’s wedding a few years ago and knew he was going to be our photographer. We loved the joy and colour in his photos, but also his ability to capture a moment and the feel of the day.

Most of the photos we had of the ceremony and reception, the people being captured had no idea they were getting their photo taken, so it really just felt like a moment in time had been suspended for us to enjoy forever. It was an honour to have him with us on the day.

I also loved this planned shot. I love Spider-Man, and my brother bought me a copy of the issue where Peter Parker marries Mary-Jane. We got a shot of Sam reading it with me peering over his shoulder. A nice nod to our geekiness.

One of my favourite parts of the day was doing the wedding photos before the ceremony. Since we got married in July, we planned the whole day around the fact that it was definitely going to rain. So to get around that, we booked an incredible terrace near the venue, with every room having different wallpaper. That way, we could do all of our photos inside and still have variety.

I’m also a big softie and wanted to try and get all the official portraits out of the way before I cried my face off. So that was the plan. The whole wedding party would meet at the terrace and get the first look and photos done.

But it didn’t rain.

In fact, it was the perfect cool winter’s day, with the sun shining. We all got to stroll around Fitzroy getting these incredible photos taken.

Because we had plenty of time, there was no rush to chase golden hour or to get back before cocktail hour ended. Sam and I just got to be excited together and spend time with our best friends. No pressure — just being present.

We loved Rupert on Rupert the moment we saw it, but had assumed we couldn’t afford it and started making alternative plans. When those plans fell through, I thought, why not get in touch and actually get all the info, and that was when I met the lovely Mali. From day one, Mali and Katie have been A+ superstars with our wedding. We got hitched on Sunday to keep the costs down and because we got married in winter, Rupert on Rupert was within the budget.
We had both the ceremony and reception there, so we didn’t have to stress about logistics.

As we are both foodies, we scoped out the menu before we locked it all in, cause at the time it was still a functioning restaurant. We ended up eating there so many times leading up to the wedding, taking different people there just so we could try the changing menu, it was always utterly phenomenal.

You hear a lot that the bride and groom often miss out on eating during their wedding. Not us, we were parked front and centre for the magic the team made. It is one of the top things our friends and family say to us, “god, that food was sensational.”

Ok, this is going to sound a bit odd, but I walked down the aisle to the theme song from Jurassic Park. It was a running joke amongst our friends that we would inevitably sing the theme at all my birthday celebrations, so when it came time to make the final call, it just felt right. And to be fair, it is a beautiful piece of music. No one really clocked what it was in the beginning, not until the famous part kicks in, and by that point, it was wonderful seeing people’s reactions.

My uncle was a minister in the Salvation Army and had jokingly asked me when I was planning on getting married from a really young age. When I responded “I don’t know”, his reply was “Well, you know where to find me”. So when it was time for us to find a celebrant, of course, we knew where to look. Since my uncle had known us both for so long, it was so lovely having him as the one to officiate our marriage. We had no idea what he was going to say, but he knocked it out of the park.

We wanted the overall feeling of the ceremony to be intimate and a celebration of our life together.

We wrote our vows and had two readings performed by two of our closest friends. The first was “Like a River” by Whitney Hanson, followed by a passage from “A Life for a Life” by Dinah Craik.

There is a shot of us walking back down the aisle that is just so joyful.

Vendor-wise, we need to talk about Mali (of Mali Bakes), Katie and Spencer from Rupert On Rupert.  When I say the day went off without a hitch, it was largely due to this team.

Mali and Katie made the whole process so easy, and on the day, Spencer made sure Sam and I had a cocktail as soon as the ceremony was over, and made sure our glasses were full all night. From the venue to the food, the drinks to organising, this team is the one you want in your corner.

A lot of the wedding was DIY to save costs. We also had the luxury of a long engagement, so we could slowly source and make things without much stress.

I sourced Nordic glassware and brass insects for the table decor, as well as designing the table signage on Canva. A few weeks before the wedding, I trimmed and styled all the flowers and vases with the bugs, and packed them all up together so it was easy for the Rupert crew to put out.

We hunted down some awesome drip-free candles from Hueseeka that came in so many lovely dark tones. They paired beautifully with the different height gold candle holders we got from a variety of places.

I really wanted the seating sign to look like we had found an antique oil painting and just wrote over it. So I tracked down some ornate frames from Facebook Marketplace and found an image of a dark and moody still life in jewel tones that matched the vibe perfectly.

The only thing was, it was printed on poster paper. But thanks to TikTok, I learnt that if you cover a print in lots of layers of brushed-on wood glue, it gives the effect of an old oil painting.

From there, I just wrote out all the names in gold Sharpie, and the finished look was perfect.

As much as I am a sucker for a beautiful floral display, when working out what we wanted to prioritise our budget to, flowers were pretty low on the list, so I decided to do them myself.

But then came the issue of not having a huge amount of free time the week of the wedding to source and arrange flowers in a tight timeline, so we ended up opting for silk and latex flowers.

As Rupert on Rupert served dinner family style, bud vases were suggested for the tables, and since we were using fake flowers, I had the luxury of being able to choose colours and species that would not have been accessible that time of year.

For the tables, I used flowers from SilkFlora. For my bouquet, I originally commissioned an incredible bouquet from Studio Alyssum, but it didn’t end up working with the dress, so I turned it into a large arrangement for the sweetheart table at the reception. On the day,y I just had two orchids wrapped in green velvet ribbon. My mother used to send my grandmother orchids every year for Mother’s Day, so it was nice to have a subtle nod to her.

Around our wedding cake was the horseshoe ribbon and bouquet my mother had on her wedding day (we both used silk flowers – great minds, etc). Considering it had lived in the back of a wardrobe in Darwin’s humidity for 30-plus years, it was in excellent shape.

Our first dance was a bit of an accident. We had decided not to do one as we find them a little awkward sometimes, instead we just asked for our DJ, Andrew McClelland, to play our song “If You’re Wondering” by Weezer at some point in the night. As the evening progressed, Andrew announced that the next song was “our song”, and everyone stopped and watched, thinking it was the first dance. We had both had two cocktails by that stage, so we actually quite enjoyed it.

There were so many details we loved from the day.

Choosing an audio guestbook was definitely a highlight. We got to hear the night as it unfolded, as our nearest and dearest wished us well and took us on the dance floor with them. One of my favourite parts was that whoever had the phone last must have put it down without hanging up, so we heard our DJ announce it was the last song, heard everyone dance to it, and then heard the night ending. It was beautiful.

We were so spoiled when it came to vendors, it felt like we were just having fun with mates who were extra invested in our day going well. Music was a big priority for us, so in our minds, there was only one person for the job: DJ Andrew McClellend.

We have loved his comedy shows, and we have been to his sets and enjoyed a big boogie. And it just so happened that year he also played at two of our mates’ weddings. So we KNEW we were in for a treat. And because the world is so small, he knew so many of our guests, so we just saved him a seat at the dinner so he could catch up with folks before his set. It was wonderful.

My dad is quite a shy man, so I didn’t ask him for a father-daughter dance.

During the reception, he asked me to dance and I raced over to our DJ, Andrew and requested “The Way I Love You” by The BeeGees (one of my dad’s favourite bands). At the time, I just focused on enjoying that moment with my dad and wasn’t aware of what was happening around me. Look back on footage from the day we saw our families all swaying, with their arms around each other, singing, it was lovely.

The ceremonial revealing of the Crocs!  I had covered a pair of white Crocs platforms in pearls and diamanté Jibbitz to change into once my feet started to hurt. As I was going to get them, people started chanting “Crocs, Crocs, Crocs”, so there are some great shots of me victoriously holding my Crocs in the air, a celebration of practical and comfortable shoes on the dance floor.

My advice to you?

  • Set a budget and keep track of everything to avoid last-minute scares.
  • We wanted to be able to spend time with everyone and not be overwhelmed, so we opted for a small wedding in one venue. But whatever your needs are, make a list of what the priorities are and focus on that.
  • Over-communicate, not everyone will understand what you want, so make sure you let people know, so everyone is on the same page.

Remember that it is your day. Should is not real; there is only do or do not, so just try to focus on why you are getting married and how you want to feel on the day.