By Miss MonMon
Our little vintage wedding was a dream come true; vintage inspired with a celestial theme, we put together our perfect day and despite the hurdles we went through to reach the aisle, it only made us grow stronger together.
When I was young, I found a photo at an antique store of a couple sitting on a paper moon. The image was so magical that I bought it with my pocket money and kept it safe for many years. Even though the photo is damaged and a little worse for wear, it was the inspiration behind my own vintage wedding set for November 2020.
Planning a wedding during a pandemic wasn’t a fairy tale at all; we had trouble communicating with our vendors, many purchases were cancelled and hiccups along the way caused many backup plans to be hatched. We were lucky to enough to have an amazing wedding planner who without, I think we would have just thrown in the towel. When push came to shove, we realised that the most important thing was to have our loved ones nearby and safe.
It took us many tries and chances to bring my mother back to Australia from Europe; after four cancelled flights and rejections of travel applications and loads of tears shed at the travel agents, we finally got her on a flight and she arrived safe. Seeing her leave Hotel Quarantine was such an overwhelming joy that I would have given up so many wedding details if it only meant she was there. Despite this, my brother and one of my bridesmaids were stuck in Europe and Ireland, and my partners family was in Canberra, so we just embraced technology and had many people watch via a zoom link.
Our other biggest drama was with my vintage wedding dress. Despite purchasing it over a year ago, it was trapped due to quarantine, incorrectly altered to the point it wasn’t wearable, damaged, lost and only showed up when it was too late. As a pinup girl who lives and breathes all things vintage; I got married in a modern wedding dress. Despite this, I loved my backup; it was covered in stars and moons which fit my theme perfectly and I know that maybe it was meant to be. I still love my vintage wedding dress and have since worn her for shoots but with the world in turmoil, believe it or not, my wedding dress wasn’t going to make or break my wedding.
I was very lucky to have some close friends in my bridal party, as well as a very non-conventional “flower guy”. I’m so glad our friends and bridal party got to embrace their own styles and uniqueness and be there for us as we wed. They fully supported all our weird ideas and our subtle nerdisms hidden throughout the day; a hidden Mickey in my veil, Sailor Moon signing pens and our first dance being a song from End Game. We loved being able to be ourselves and everyone enjoy the little touches throughout the day.
To keep the event feeling as vintage possible, I designed my bouquet to reflect my partners grandmothers bouquet and wore all vintage jewellery my favourite piece being a pair of earring from my favourite jewellery store in Dublin purchased by my bridesmaid who was unable to attend. My makeup, done by my maid of honour, was also in a classic pinup style and my hair was expertly teased and curled into vintage perfection by Michelle from Cherrybomb Beauty Parlour. To get to the venue we had a vintage Jaguar limousine collect us and a vintage bar cart for the guests to enjoy. During dinner, we played vintage classics before ramping it up for the big party to follow.
As we went for a celestial theme, we chose navy and gold to be our main colour palette and went a bit over the top with decoration ideas. Despite building an entire paper moon from scratch which became a photo prop, we also created a metal frame moon and covered it in flowers which we got married in front of. We DIY’d a lot of things in order to keep the cost down and also because I’m pretty handy with a hot glue gun.
We made all our signs and with the help of our friend Alex from Alex Designs Things, we designed our stationary to fit our theme and even snuck in a few images of our cat, Brian. Everything that stood still was covered in fairy lights, we hung Moldavian star lanterns above the bridal table and gold star lanterns from the trees. We wanted it to feel like we were all dancing in a galaxy surrounded by stars close enough to touch.
We were very lucky to have the Jacaranda trees in full bloom during our wedding. Sitting under bright purple trees that softly dropped their flowers was really lovely to see even if a few petals got into our wine glasses. Another of our favourite features was our photobooth which the guests really loved and the ability to send photos from guests phone to the booth for instant printing. We loved seeing all these images in our guest book and had a good laugh as well.
Of course, we had an absolutely wonderful wedding photographer who fully embraced our vintage style and captured the day so beautifully. Mel Siva photography was a joy to work with and her assistant kept us laughing the entire day. I had the wedding photos of my dreams and I hope they also bring you much joy. We are a bit of an odd couple; we are huge nerds, we geek out over strange things but after almost ten years of being together, we got to share this special day with so many dear friends.
We all dream of saying that our wedding was perfect and I’m very blessed to say mine was. When I look back at the preparations for the big day, so much went horribly wrong, many tears were shed, and stress tea was drunk but it was all worth it because I got to marry my best friend and true love. That moment, no matter what I wore, what flowers were ordered and what drama we went through, it was all completely worth it.
My husband and I are now excitedly saving up for a big honeymoon once it is safe to travel. We hope to start building our new home together in the next year or so and we can’t wait to live happily ever after with our princess of a cat, Brian.
Credits:
Photographer: Mel Siva Photography
Dress: Collezione Bridal
Makeup: Miss Vintage Orchid
Hair: Cherrybomb Beauty Parlour
Venue: Brookleigh Estate
Wedding Planner: Heart and Soul Events
For all credit and vendor links, please visit missmonmon.com or find Miss MonMon in Instagram @missmonmon.pinup