Sienna and Angus first connected after school, when an “accidental” Facebook wave turned into an all night conversation, a first kiss and, eventually, a life together. After Angus proposed spontaneously in Cavtat, Croatia, the couple married at Farm Vigano in South Morang, celebrating in a beautiful garden setting inspired by Sienna’s Italian heritage and their love of travel. Their colourful, relaxed day was filled with delicious food, vibrant florals, sunshine and plenty of limoncello spritz. The wedding celebrations were beautifully captured by Royal Media. This is Sienna’s story, in her own words.

We knew each other from our social circles as teenagers, but didn’t really connect until after school when Angus added me on Facebook and “accidentally” sent a wave to start the conversation. Messenger used to have a feature where you could send a waving sticker to new connections, so I clicked on it and apologised for “accidentally waving” as an excuse to start the conversation. We talked all night, which turned into all weekend, which turned into me inviting Gus along to a night out with our friends. We shared our first kiss on the dance floor of Rats (RIP Melbourne’s cheapest nightclub) to God’s Plan by Drake, ended the night stargazing from the balcony and the rest is history – inseparable ever since.

Our engagement took place in Cavtat in Croatia on June 30th, 2023, during our round the world trip. We had a few days just chilling in Cavtat between tours and had been taking it very easy – going to the beach, swimming in the pool, lazing in the sun. On the last night, we planned to wander down to town for dinner. Angus wanted to take my tripod to “do a time-lapse of the sunset” (my first moment of suspicion). When we got back to the accommodation, we went up to the rooftop to catch the sunset. Angus wanted to “take photos” with me, but of course, he proposed instead.

Turns out he had the ring the whole time we’d been away, throwing me off the scent early by saying he couldn’t do it so far away from family and friends (liar!). Apparently, the plan was maybe in the Greek islands but he decided THAT AFTERNOON he didn’t want to wait.

It was spontaneous, private and perfect. We both kind of blacked out though and when we watched the video back to remember what we actually said, turns out the hotel next door was blasting the Macarena and that’s all you can hear in the video. Haha!

The wedding took place in March at Farm Vigano in South Morang. We chose a Sunday because it was more cost effective and plus it was the long weekend, so nobody would have to work the next day. Also means our anniversary will always be on a long weekend yay! The most important thing to us was to have a great time with our friends and family, eat delicious food, have a bit of a party and incorporate fun and colour into the day. I would say ours is relatively traditional, but there were plenty of things you “have” to do that we said nah, that’s not us (garter toss, formal dance with parents, flower girls, favours, not seeing each other before the ceremony). We both love to travel, and one of our favourite places is Italy, but we weren’t specifically looking for an Italian venue. However, when we saw Farm Vigano we just knew it was the one. To be able to have a slice of Tuscany, a nod to our travels and my Italian heritage, mixed with the gorgeous Aussie bush, it was perfect. The day was fun, relaxed, beautiful, colourful – a celebration of us with plenty of sunshine, incredible food and A LOT of limoncello spritz.

Something that was super important to us was making the experience easy for both ourselves and the guests. A big part of that was having everything in one place. We didn’t want to have to worry about transport between a ceremony and reception venue, so it was a no brainer when we were looking to find a venue that offered multiple locations for on site photos, a beautiful outdoor ceremony, a backup wet weather ceremony option and a reception space. We researched a lot of locations online and then narrowed it down to places we really wanted to tour. I think we did about seven or 8 on site tours of a huge range of venues, including some inner city sleek hotel venues, to Yarra Valley wineries, and more hipster brewery spaces. We liked all for different reasons, but the most important things to us were: somewhere pretty, somewhere that felt isolated but was still accessible for our guests, somewhere that had exquisite food and great drink options, and of course, somewhere that felt like us.

When we went for a tour, as we were walking down the driveway, we both just knew it was the place, and after speaking to their fantastic coordinator, Suzie, we booked straight away on that day. I have absolutely zero regrets on the venue; everything was 100% perfect, and if we got married again, I would book there over and over.

I loved my wedding dress! I wore Stella York 8058 Romantic off the shoulder organza a-line wedding dress with a sweetheart neckline. It was truly perfect. The massive skirt and long train were very dramatic and I felt like such a princess walking down the stairs and down the aisle. I knew I wanted a larger skirt, but I thought I wanted more of a simple chiffon. I tried a few like that and liked them, but when I saw this one, I knew I had to try it. I’ve always leaned into the cute, whimsical princess style in real life, and wanted the big fairytale look for my wedding.

I made a whole day of trying on dresses! I booked in a day midweek over a year before the wedding with all 5 bridesmaids, my mum, mother in law and grandma. I booked 4 appointments and we visited each store plus brunch to make a real outing of it. It was so much fun having everybody with me.

The final stop was True Society in Fitzroy and it was SPECTACULAR. They have incredible fitting rooms and were so accommodating of our big group. Alex, my stylist, was so helpful showing me great options.

I also visited two other stores, Emily May Bridal and Leah S Designs. Emily May had some that came close but nothing could top THE dress. I did end up buying my veil from there, so definitely worth going! The fourth store we probably could’ve done without since I was so sure, but we used it as an opportunity to have fun and try some more unique dresses like pink and black!

I really wanted to have a piece of the important women who had been married before me with me on my day, so I got a piece of the dresses my mum, grandma and mother-in-law wore on their wedding days and sewed it into the underskirt of my dress. Nobody could see it, but I knew it was there. Another thing that people couldn’t see (until I had a few drinks later in the night, and started showing it to people), but I knew was there and had sentimental family value was the Garter that my great grandmother made. My grandma, great aunt, mum and second cousin had all worn it before me on their wedding days. I continued the tradition by wearing it, and hopefully, more women in my family in the future will wear it on their wedding day if they wish to.

Angus wore a custom three piece suit, which he designed with the help of Mikey from Oscar Hunt in Prahran. We always knew that we wanted him in a lighter colour and had been looking at light grey and beige linen, but we couldn’t find anything that was quite right, and we wanted him to look very unique and have something that was super special for him. If brides get to spend thousands of dollars on their look, why shouldn’t the groom? We took in some inspiration and were very hands on in choosing the material, the fit, the cut and had a couple of different fittings. To be honest, when I first saw him in it in early fittings, I didn’t love the colour. I thought it was a little bit too yellow rather than white or a light cream, but he loved it and it totally grew on me. In the end, it was absolutely perfect in that it complemented our venue so well, and it really made Gus stand out and look incredibly handsome.

I think it’s so important for grooms to be highly involved in the wedding planning, especially when it comes to what they’ll be wearing on the day. They deserve to feel special too!

Here’s where we also went a little untraditional, in that we had an unbalanced wedding party. I’m a very social person, and I have a lot of close friends. I really didn’t want to have to choose between my four best friends, so all of them were my bridesmaids as well as my sister. We spoke about whether we should have the same amount to make things even in photos, because that’s what the norm is, but in the end we just wanted to do what suited us rather than what was expected. Angus didn’t want a big group of groomsmen, so he just had his two brothers and my brother.

Our flowers were faux. With my vision of lots of big beautiful colourful floral arrangements, I knew I would either have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars or be okay with fake.

Now I would rather put that extra money into great food and drink, so I started looking around at fake florals. I considered doing them myself but in the end I found a fantastic faux floral vendor on Facebook who had amazing styling packages where you simply rent the arrangements. I am so so happy we went with that decision because it meant we could allocate our budget to other things that we considered more important while still having beautiful, impactful florals. If you look closely, you can tell they’re fake but most of our guests didn’t notice and I think they look excellent in the photos. Plus I feel better knowing beautiful flowers didn’t go to waste after the day and these will be reused for other brides in future.

My bouquet, the bridesmaids’ bouquets and the boys’ boutonnieres were supposed to be fake as part of our package. Later, Cleo the florist offered to provide real ones for us. Now I struggled to make this decision because I loved the idea that if they were fake, we could keep them forever as a nice keepsake, but having real ones would also add that extra luxurious element, look really beautiful and smell nice. In the end, I opted for real, and I’m very happy with that decision to mix both real and faux florals. I also love a good DIY and used my Cricut machine a lot. We wanted to include DIYs to make it more personal and it also helped save money.

Together, we designed and made the save the dates and invitations. I also made personalised place cards to reserve seats for immediate family at the ceremony.

I also DIY’d the memory frames for our grandparents who are no longer with us. I also did a lot of DIY for the bridesmaids, including gift boxes to ask them to be my bridesmaids and personalised hangers and wine glasses for the morning.

I certainly would have done a lot more, except there were a lot of personalised things included in the floral styling package, like a mirror, seating chart, welcome sign etc. and the venue included menus, table numbers, etc., so I really didn’t need to DIY much, even though I was prepared to.

I walked down the aisle to ‘You Are in Love’ by Taylor Swift. I’m a big Swiftie and always knew that I wanted to walk down to a Taylor Swift song, but choosing just one song was pretty hard. This is a song that I have loved since I was a teenager, and I used it as a benchmark for what a good relationship should feel like. It describes love as not just something big and flashy, but lots of small, meaningful moments put together to create happiness. When I first started dating Gus, he made me feel that way, so it was the perfect choice. We had Ryan and Amelia from Paper Hearts perform live, which just added such a special personal touch. Even though it was a Taylor Swift song, it wasn’t the original version, and I loved the quiet, acoustic, touching performance that they gave, which made such a special moment even more emotional. ‘Love Story’ by Taylor Swift also has a special place in our relationship as a song we love to belt together on the dance floor or at karaoke, but it’s also quite overused, so I didn’t want to choose it as my walk down some but we did use it as our recessional.

We were very adamant that our ceremony should be short, sweet, fun and certainly not boring! We didn’t do any of the traditional or religious stuff, we just wanted it to be the story of how we met and fell in love, personal vows, a big kiss, and then get into the true celebrations where we can connect with our friends and family. Some unique things we did to make it more relaxed and personal included encouraging friends and family to take pictures at the very start, before we got into the proper ceremony, and then putting their phones away so the rest of the ceremony would be unplugged. Seeing everybody’s photos later, and also taking a moment to look over the crowd and register just how many people had come to celebrate our love was incredible.

I had both of my parents walk me down the aisle because they both raised me and it was important for me to acknowledge how much of an impact they both had on me, not just my father. Both of our mums were our witnesses, but I also wanted to include our grandparents, so we had both of our grandma’s be the ring bearers and bring the rings up to us when it was time to exchange them, plus my grandad held on to them as the ring warmer to bestow his love into them.

There are soooooooooo many favourite photographs to choose from! I love the wide shot of use kissing in a dip walking back down the aisle after the ceremony. You can truly see the whole vibe of the day, the beauty of the location, the colours of the florals and all the guests who came to celebrate us.

Our first dance song was a super niche remix of an EDM artist that we both like and had seen in concert together. We wanted to pick something romantic that allowed for a little bit of slow dancing but also had a beat that we could groove to. We also wanted to choose something that pretty much no one else would have! To be honest, I think there was one person at the wedding who even knew the song! Our song was ‘BAYNK – Go With U’ (Louis La Roche Remix). The dance routine was fully choreographed by my fiends David and Holly from Dance In HD. We told them the general vibe we wanted and they choreographed and taught us the whole thing. We only had two in person lessons with them but practised quite a bit at home in the lead up. We had so much fun performing our dance – it was a nice opportunity to show off our dance skills while having a laugh with each other.

It’s hard to pick just one special detail or moment, but the core theme of these is that Angus and I truly got to spend time together on the day, and we prioritised spending time with our guests by doing things in a not so traditional order, which I’m very grateful for.

I absolutely loved the following:

  • Memory table with framed photos of our grandparents who have already passed.
  • Angus driving his own car to the ceremony with his dad (he loves his sports car!)
  • My mum helping me to get ready and put on my dress. She asked to do this as she had dreamed of it as a mother. It was such a special moment.
  • Angus’s custom suit.
  • Our first look before the ceremony for a few reasons.
  • We didn’t want to spend the whole day apart; it’s the biggest day of our lives, and we wanted to spend as much of it together as possible!
  • Capturing our portraits and photographs with the bridal party before the ceremony – which then meant we could smash out family photos in about 15 minutes after the ceremony, and then be at our own cocktail hour. Also meant my hair and makeup were super fresh for our couple’s photos!
  • My beautiful bridesmaids bought me a gorgeous bracelet from Swarovski to wear on the day, and my mum bought me an amazing tennis bracelet from Michael Hill, which I also wore on the day.
  • Angus left flowers outside the suite where we were getting ready with a note saying how excited he was to marry me, which made the morning so special, even when we couldn’t be together.
  • My grandma and his Nonna were our ring bearers.
  • My grandad was the ring warmer, so he kept the ring safe during the ceremony until they were needed.
  • Our celebrant Ryan, was also playing live music, he also became the MC and the DJ, and it was incredible to have one person as the point of contact to do multiple roles. It really reduced the amount of wedding admin we had to do and made the day feel a lot more intimate as it flowed from one occasion to another.
  • Angus’s mum, Fiona, made the cake, and then my bridesmaid Emily decorated it, which just added another beautiful personal level.
  • We had an audio guestbook, so guests could leave us a message on a vintage phone, and then we could listen to them after the wedding.
  • As I am a bridal content creator myself, it was really important for me to have lots of authentic, organic memories of the day, and whilst unfortunately I couldn’t have my first pick of wedding content creator (ME). I trusted a good friend, Brooke (The Lofi Lab), to capture the day, which then allowed me to edit whatever content I wanted in my own Bride Or Die style later.
  • We didn’t have a bridal party or sweetheart table, but rather used the venue’s king tables. The head table that we sat at had our bridal party and their partners, plus our parents. The long tables were fantastic for the communal feast style of food, and an excellent opportunity for lots of people to chat and get up and mingle rather than feel confined to their smaller round table.
  • We also left two blank chairs in front of Angus and I so that people could come up and chat to us during the meal as they wished.
  • We kept speeches short and sweet giving everybody a strict three minute deadline knowing they would go over, so speeches ended up going for about 15 minutes which was perfect we didn’t want them to drag on but still gave people an opportunity to speak. His dad, my dad, my mum and one of the bridesmaids spoke as well as Angus and I to do a quick thank you.

I loved Angus’s Dad’s speech. For context Angus and I both work in libraries, so Andrew started the speech by asking “any librarians in the house tonight?” which we responded to with happy hoots and hollers, and he then abruptly shushed us, which was a great gag to get the speeches going.

We worked with Royal Media for both photography and videography. I know Shan through my job and she does their admin and marketing, so I automatically already trusted them, and they had such a beautiful portfolio. I loved that Jerry and Gayle were both the same age as us and so easy to get along with; it never felt stuffy or forced, especially in the planning process. They were easy to just have a chat with. My favourite thing about the photographs is that they capture the gorgeous colours of the day in a true to life style without being overly edited or saturated. There is such a beautiful mix of staged classic elegant images as well as candid pics that really just capture the vibe of the day and the fun that everybody was having. Also, the wedding video gave us chills! It is so well edited and tells the story of the day non-linearly. I love that it is sweet and romantic yet also fun. I have already watch dit like 20 times and will probably watch it 100 more before we even reach our first anniversary haha!

Shout outs go to Ryan from Paper Hearts, who is not only a very skilled vendor who can do multiple roles, but he was such a calm and friendly presence who really guided us through the planning process. He was so organised and it was never too much trouble to respond to extra questions or organise a little chat.

I also think Suzie, the wedding coordinator at Farm Vigano deserves a massive shout out. Not only was she excellent in the lead up with her communication and organisation, but also such a friendly point of contact who was genuinely interested in us and our wedding; it didn’t feel like she was planning multiple at a time and always just focused on us. On the actual day, she made sure we had everything we needed and things behind the scenes ran so smoothly; even when there were small hiccups, she was always ready with a solution.

I loved the wedding planning process. I’m a very organised person who loves planning. I love colour coding, I love envisioning exactly how an event is going to unfold before it does, and I have the 100 page planner to prove it! Something I’m truly grateful for and believe every bride should never settle for less than is a partner who is genuinely excited about your wedding and willing to help you plan it. Angus was never apathetic with decisions; he bought his own opinions and ideas and was always there to support me, and honestly drove a lot of the organisation himself as the master of spreadsheets!

The five things, which made our wedding special:

  1. Keeping it relatively small (I know 80 doesn’t seem small, but I could’ve had so many more) and inviting the people who truly play a big part in our lives.
  2. Spending as much time with Angus as possible and truly soaking in the day together, regardless of superstitions and norms that often keep the bride and groom apart before the ceremony.
  3. The food! As a foodie myself, and an Italian, a lot of excellent food with great choices for our guests was super important I’m so glad we didn’t go for a stuffy gourmet fancy alternate drop and instead chose items people actually love to eat, like pizza, pasta, potatoes and gelato!
  4. The weather – as a vendor, I have been to weddings in every type of weather, and while I know that rain isn’t the end of the world, no bride wants it to be miserable weather! Having our wedding in early March was a bit of a gamble; it could have been sweltering hot or even fire danger. But, we got so so lucky. It was 25 degrees and perfect sunshine. It made the whole day look and feel perfect. People didn’t have to be worried about being cold or sweating too much!
  5. The dress… need I say more?

If any of the advice I’ve given has gone against what you truly want, who cares! Disregard everybody’s opinion except yours and your partner’s and make your wedding special to you. As much as you want the guests to have a good time, there are so many conflicting opinions, and you’re never going to make every single person happy. You’re better off with something that you and your partner can look back on in years to come and be proud of and know you had the best day. Also, if you’re not super organised and you find planning overwhelming, I would highly recommend leaning on your vendors. They have been to thousands of weddings and can definitely help you with things like timelines, recommendations for other vendors, and even unique things they’ve seen other couples do that could be perfect for you.

Choose three to four things that matter most to you and prioritise your budget around that. For example, if you really value good food and you want a stunning venue, then maybe you have to be a little bit tighter with your expectations around entertainment or maybe skip extras like a photo booth. I can’t tell you what to prioritise, but I can tell you that if you have a tight budget, it’s important to really talk to your partner and say OK what do we really, really want, and what are things that we probably won’t actually care about three weeks after (ie. table linens and menus).

Last but not least, book the content creator! As someone who had a photographer and a videographer and a content creator, I personally think all three are very important. The high quality photographs and videos are stunning but you will have to wait for them. The next morning, being able to go through all of the incredible content and look back together on how the day went was just so valuable. People in your life who weren’t at the wedding will also ask you to see photos, and you’ll wanna show them everything! Having a personalised album full of every precious moment from the day, without having to wait more than about 48 hours, is priceless.

Thank you so much to Sienna and Angus for sharing your beautiful wedding with us. We’re so delighted to feature this colourful celebration in our Garden Issue. A wonderful reminder that the most memorable weddings are the ones that feel completely, authentically you!