Retro Coastal Wedding in Bremer Bay

In what felt like a story straight out of a retro love song, Caroline and Rohan’s paths first crossed at a young farmer’s party, an unassuming night that changed everything. Fast forward to a wedding that was every bit as colourful, sustainability-focused, and bursting with 60s vibes. With photography by the incredible Greta Wolzak, their coastal celebration at Salt Cove Bremer Bay unfolded against the sea, salt and sand.

When Caroline was planning a young farmer’s party, she had no idea that when the night ended, she would have met the love of her life. “Caroline had organised the party, and it was a huge extravaganza. Our mutual friend Will had mentioned to me that I should introduce myself to Caroline, which I did when she was on the bar! We had a great night, and I hung around the next day to help clean up, and they hit it off. Later that week Caroline slid into my DMs and the rest was written in the stars,” Rohan explained.

It was during their trip to Italy that everything changed – for the best! “I had planned an absolute DREAM week exploring Rome and then the Amalfi Coast. The day we got engaged, we’d had a particularly fantastic day doing a self-guided scooter tour with our friends Sophie P (who ended up being our MC) and her fiancé Jacob.

The sun was setting, and we were all getting ready to head to a fancy restaurant in Positano that I had also planned/booked (a month in advance, due to its popularity). Sophie got us posing for some photos and then stepped back inside (to secretly hide in the window and video!) We were looking out at the incredible view when Rohan stepped back and got on one knee to ask me to marry him!!!

I had said something like, ‘It doesn’t get better than this,’ and then he said, ‘I can think of one thing that could make it better, if you marry me?’ I was VERY surprised as I hadn’t thought he would propose when we were with our friends, so I wasn’t even thinking about it. It took me a good 30 seconds to ACTUALLY respond (we timed it on the video Sophie took!!!). It was such a special moment and completely unforgettable. So fun to celebrate with our friends after and enjoy an incredible night out in Positano. Still a pinch me moment thinking about it now,” she shared.

For the first section of the day, Rohan chose to wear a 60s-inspired chocolate brown linen suit with a bolo tie (found at a vintage market – score!), paired with a white shirt and brown R.M. Williams boots. “I embroidered a little note on the inside of the jacket with wool which had been spun by a lovely local lady and friend, Vicki, using sheep’s wool from our own farm!”

His wedding party wore matching brown linen suits and a white shirt they already owned, with Caroline adding embroidered initials and dates to all of their jackets.

Caroline’s first dress of the day was this incredible Ingrid Olić Bridal piece, paired with a scarf veil she made that morning, by cutting some tulle from Spotlight.

Her own wedding party wore a combination of brown, green and blue dresses for the first ceremony. “I had “mood boarded” and then sourced all except one second hand from Facebook and Depop!”

All of the beautiful florals for their retro coastal wedding were created by Prue from Good Batch Co.! “She basically read our minds and created the most incredible, colourful, fun, quirky arrangements ever. Our 10/10 stylist (and venue owner Brodie aka Bib Approach) played a huge part in the flower direction too! One thing we really wanted was Boganville and Prue delivered the most amazing hanging arrangements above the tables in the marquee – it looks SO epic.”

The first ceremony was kept intimate, with just their wedding party, parents, siblings and grandparents. Caroline walked down the aisle for this with her mum and dad on her arms, as Kasey Musgraves’ cover of “Can’t Help Falling In Love” played.

“We knew from very early on that we wanted to have an intimate ceremony to share our vows with each other. We are both outgoing and extroverted people, but when it comes to being sincere or serious, we get very emotional! So we had our celebrant (and great friend) Liz Quicke guide us through the ceremony until the end of our vows. It was very sentimental to be able to say our vows to each other on the block Rohan’s family have had for so long,” Caroline explained.

“We wanted this first ceremony to feel really nice and warm and special and comfortable! An extra special moment was having Rohan’s sister’s son and daughter bring our dogs (Mavis and Sadie) down the aisle (to the song “You’ve Got A Friend In Me”), and getting all our family photos taken on the deck! A funny moment was when we had our first kiss, and my red lipstick got all over Rohan!!! I hadn’t thought about that… great moment, though. And so glad I went with the red lip, my make-up artist Adele did an amazing, bold 60s look that I loved!”

If it wasn’t already clear, the theme for Caroline and Rohan’s wedding was coastal, 1960s and fun! “Sentimental / Fun / Vibrant / Colourful / Quirky / Sustainable and most importantly “us”! Our stylist, Brodie (Bib Approach), created the most incredible style guide from our inspiration photos (which were mostly photos from our travels) that guided the whole process – she had the most amazing ideas and brought to life what I can only describe as the best wedding in the world!”

Salt Cover Bremer Bay was the ONLY venue Caroline and Rohan needed to look at – with views like that, why look elsewhere?” Our darling and extremely talented friends Brodie and Isaac Baum recently started this wedding venue in our favourite and local beach town, Bremer Bay. Bremer is a little over an hour from where we live on our farm in Ongerup. It was so important for us to get married where it meant something to us… but we didn’t want to do a full DIY wedding on the farm! So, Bremer was a no-brainer, and Salt Cove was a well and truly dream location. The view from the reception lawn overlooking the cliffs is jaw-dropping. The coastal vegetation that covers the whole block and surrounds the reception lawn and ceremony spot is stunning, and we loved knowing and feeling like we were in the ‘bush’!”

To kick off the second ceremony, Rohan and Caroline walked down the aisle together to the original Elvis version of “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, where 138 of their guests waited. “It was here that our MC Sophie told the story of our relationship, she was with us when we got engaged and for many of our special relationship milestones like our first holidays and lived with Caroline in Kojonup when we were first dating – driving between Ongerup and Kojonup! The vibe for this was fun, colourful, upbeat and charismatic! We exchanged our rings at this ceremony and had Caroline’s brother, David, as our ring bearer. The rings we had made ourselves in a class in Fremantle with Blonde.Perth, which was a beautiful experience in itself.”

Capturing the day alongside Caroline and Rohan was the talented Greta Wolzak on photography and Annie Lila on cinematography. “Greta is amazing! Nothing was too much trouble. She just knew exactly how to catch the beautiful day and made us feel so special and at ease,” Rohan shared, with Caroline adding:” Greta is a ray of sunshine. She gave us her whole heart and made us feel so so at ease. We had SO much fun taking the portraits and the way she captured the day was magical. The pictures are SO COOL. And they make me feel all the feels from the day whenever I look at them. The beautiful, soft, romantic vibes from the first ceremony, the vibrant fun of the reception and the absolute belly of laughs that was the 60s bridal party photos!

Annie was another absolute DELIGHT of a human that we had the pleasure of having be part of our day. Her and Greta worked together incredibly and Annie was so much fun. The video she created used audio of a mash-up of some of our aisle songs and the song the bridal party re-entered, as well as snippets from our vows and our MC’s speech. The Super 8 film looks so cool, and the fun/vintage vibe really suited us and the whole day.”

To make their reception theirs, Caroline and Rohan created a range of DIY elements. “We hand-made match boxes using pictures depicting some of the many places we’ve travelled to around Australia and the world. With lots of help from Brodie, we chose lots of ‘vintage’ style pictures of things and places, including: sheep/farming, Blaenavon, Wales, Tasmania, pasta & chilli, etc.

Caroline also created the welcome sign, seating plan design, and custom pizza box – inspired by the checked rug Brodie/BIB helped us source- and used a hand-drawn picture of our two dogs, Mavis and Sadie, that our mate Gen drew for us.”

Another creation that really made their reception stand out was the custom-wrapped bar, which showcased all of Rohan and Caroline’s favourite moments from their relationship. “We worked with amazing stationery artist Daniela AKA Creative Line & Co to bring this to life. The idea was for this bar wrap to be saved for us to get framed and displayed in our house! We can’t wait to get it back from the framers and hang it up. Daniela also used some of the sketches from the bar wrap to create a mini visual timeline of some of the most special.”

One of their favourite details from the day was how into the theme all of their guests got – and were perfectly showcased in their Polaroid guest book! “We had a Polaroid guest book where we asked all our guests to take a photo of themselves and write where or how they sourced their outfits, so we could look back at the amazing effort everyone went to, and there were so many awesome stories behind the outfits. Some of our fave stories were:

Our friend Ali, when she was shopping at a vintage store in Fremantle,’ Lucy in Disguise’, she bumped into the bride’s parents!
Caroline’s grandpa, Frank wearing a dinner suit he’s owned since the 60s
And some of our guests Abby & Stacey wearing dresses they made themselves!”

Halfway through the night, the wedding party had a wardrobe change and turned up the 60s vibe even further! Rohan and the groomsmen changed into different coloured turtlenecks.

Caroline and the bridesmaids changed into her grandmother’s own dress from the 60s! “My mum (Annabelle) had the dress altered in the 90s for her wedding. And then I shortened it to suit the 60s party vibe we were going for. Being able to wear the dress my mum and Grannie wore was super special. And was the inspiration behind our “60s attire” theme for our guests! Styled with second-hand pink Gogo style boots and a vintage pair of Prada sunnies & a 60s black and white scarf – both of which I found the weekend before the wedding at the same vintage markets where we saw Rohan’s epic bolo tie. Was meant to be!

Girls for the 60s reception wore a mix of yellow, blue mini 60s style dresses that were also mostly sourced from Depop by the bride. Gogo boots, vintage 60s sunnies, bold earrings, and fabric headbands completed the look to perfection!!!”

Thanks to Greta’s magic, it was hard for Rohan and Caroline to pick any one photo as their favourite. For Rohan, all the 60s-inspired shots after their outfit change are top of the list. Caroline would definitely agree: “So hard to choose just one! Greta is magic with the camera. I definitely agree with Rohan, the photos with our dogs were so special, and then the bridal party photos when we changed into our 60s gear were SO SO fun – album cover vibes. One of the props we used was a big 1960s fashion book of my mum’s! There are two that really stay with me, one from each ceremony. First one is when Rohan and I have just walked back down the aisle and both smiling SO BIG, and you can see the deck/guests in the background, and I’m holding up my bouquet. And the second one is Rohan and I standing in the ‘Peppermint Chapel’ (the ceremony spot at Salt Cove) and the floral arrangements Prue made are either side of us and we’re standing on the amazing green/white checked wool rug that Brodie helped us source which is now in its forever home in our bedroom and the sun is coming through the peppermint tree behind us! Perfection.”

Rohan wanted to shout out their incredible caterer, Vincenzo from Il Paiolo: “He came all the way from Perth to cater, and his incredible Italian food was so delicious. The ragu for mains was insane. And the pizza for an entrée (and for the late-night snack!!! which we served in custom pizza boxes that Caroline created with a sketch of our two dogs that our friend Gen drew for us!)”

Instead of having a traditional wedding cake, Rohan took it as the perfect opportunity to finally buy his dream wheel of Jarlsberg cheese. “We had a huge wheel of Jarlsberg cheese that we ‘cut’ together. We then had about 8 small tiramisu cakes that we delivered to extra special guests at their tables for them to ‘cut the cake’ with us!”

Their first dance was to a cover of “What Dreams Are Made Of” by Hilary Duff. “Caroline had loved this song for a long time. The acoustic version we found was just right. We DIY’d *** about a 1min choreographed dance and then had my Sister in Law, Bonny, mash the song up to change to one of our fave party songs – “Stranger” Peking Duk. This was where all our bridal party rushed the dance floor, and the guests followed suit & the party began!” Rohan shared, with Caroline adding: “***to make up the dance we used TikTok and channelled my 8yo self who used to make up dances with my sister and force our parents and aunties to watch our (sometimes 1hr long) performances.”

To bring all the good vibes throughout the night, Caroline and Rohan had live music! “My brother David, aka our ring bearer and one half of the band Old Mervs, along with our amazing friend Henry, the other half of the band, played all their best hits as well as a cover of my other fave band Ball Park Music! It was amazing and so so so lucky to have the most generous and talented brother/friend who brought all their gear down from Perth and absolutely MADE the party. Our other friend Harry, a member of the band Ra Ra Viper, then continued the party into the night as the DJ,” Caroline explained.

“Ok, one more, my brother’s band singing “There She Goes” by the Beatles right as my Grannie was about to leave, so I pulled her to the stage and had her, me, mum & my sister arm in arm singing along – all three generations. So special!”