Welcome to the home of “feel good” weddings…
I started this website in 2007 because I fell in love with weddings. I used to go to the library, borrow all the wedding magazines and make my dad help me photocopy them. I loved the pretty, I loved the creativity, and I loved, most of all, the way a wedding could feel like the most hopeful thing in the world.
So I started writing about them. Sharing the stories I loved, the businesses I met who did amazing things.
And the more I wrote, the more my perspective shifted.
It became something beyond pretty details and pictures. I began to understand what I loved most about the stories was seeing how people expressed their true selves, the selves their partners fell in love with, through their days. I started to understand the nuance beyond the vows and the speeches and the formalities. The emotional side of how a wedding can pull in all our deepest fears and our biggest hopes.
I also started to notice how many voices were missing from wedding media. How often, when you scroll or look for inspiration, it only reflects one kind of story, one kind of couple. And it made my passion shift with it.
My love for weddings has never vanished, but it has grown into something wider. Stories that are often left untold. Nuance that is often left out in the assumption that we should all have it figured out. The side of weddings we pretend doesn’t exist.
Because weddings are a hothouse. Often the first time in our lives we are forced to have the really difficult conversations. On the surface it’s napkin colours and guest numbers. But underneath it’s the way we argue, the way we hold discussions, the pain and family legacy of finances and relationships, the mental load of it all.
And it is so easy to get swept up in weddings as a performance of your aspirational self. The self who has it all together, who has the budget and the beauty and the creativity all figured out. We want to be that person, and we want the world to see it in every detail.
But in the middle of all of that, we get lost.
The weddings I remember most aren’t the most perfect ones. They’re the ones where something real happened. Where the couple looked at each other and you could feel it. Where the day was unmistakably theirs.
That’s what Polka Dot Wedding is here for. To show you what’s possible when you actually do it your way. And to make sure you can see yourself in the stories we tell, every budget, every body, every background, every kind of love.
Not as a policy. Just because those are the stories worth telling.
I hope you find yours here.
Dorothy x
Meet Dorothy, aka Ms Polka Dot
I grew up in a small country town in New South Wales and moved to Melbourne where I met the love of my life. In 2007 I started a little blog called Polka Dot Bride, mostly because I couldn’t stop thinking about how people celebrate love. That blog grew into Polka Dot Wedding, which is now a space for stories, ideas, and thoughtful support as couples plan a day that feels like their own.
Over the years I’ve been honoured to be named one of Anthill Magazine’s 30 under 30 and to be part of a community that trusts us with some of their most meaningful moments. I’ve shared thoughts on the Today Show, Sunrise, Today Extra, 3AW, and podcasts like Baby Got Backend and The Wedding & Event Creators. My words have appeared in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Elle, Mama Mia, Jetstar Magazine, Daily Mail, Cosmopolitan and more.
Through Polka Dot Wedding, we’ve worked with brands like Expedia, Microsoft, NAB, Intercontinental, Etsy, The Ritz Carlton and Barcelona Bridal Fashion Week. We’ve covered honeymoons and fashion weeks from Fiji to Phuket, Broome to Barcelona. But the real heart of the work is still the same.
We care deeply about making wedding media more inclusive, more joyful, and more human. We want every couple to feel seen and supported, and every story to be told with care.
That’s what keeps me showing up after all these years. That, and the cheese.
Want a chat? To advertise? To make a submission? Head to our contact page to get in touch!
Check out the Polka Dot Wedding blog policies here.
Our headshots by ever-fabulous Brooke Hagel.
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