Real Wedding: Mel & Nick

Another beautiful wedding shot by Jonas Peterson for you today! Mel, the bride, was kind enough to share some details with us about the day...


The venue for our ceremony was an old homestead in Milford, an area with rolling hills and gorgeous scenery about 15 minutes from Boonah in Queensland, Australia. The only way out to the ceremony venue was via a dirt road, so we elected to hire a bus for our guests, which brought guests between their local hotels to the ceremony and reception venue, before returning them to their hotels at the close of the night. We wanted to maintain a sense of mystery and adventure, so we referred to the ceremony venue as the 'secret location' on invitations, only providing details of the bus pick-up times and reception venue.




The dress was an original gown from the 1950s which I purchased a week and a half before the wedding. Basically, when I had begun looking for a dress, I had my heart set on something vintage. I couldn't find what I was after, and ended up ordering a new gown elsewhere. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, I discovered the bridal store had experienced a problem with ordering the dress, and it wasn't apparent if the dress would end up making it to me on time or not. In desperation, I took the afternoon off work and went searching, driving aimlessly; I came by a vintage store I'd never seen before, went in and discovered this amazing gown that fit me perfectly - and the rest is history! I couldn't help but think that it was all meant to be. I adored the gown and my only regret is the fact that I won't have another chance to wear it!




Our friend Liz did a fantastic reading for us during the ceremony: A Lovely Love Story by Edward Monkton, which she read from the book and displayed pictures as she went. Nick's lovely Aunt Bernice married us with vows we'd written. The weather ended up being perfect: 25 degrees Celcius [77 degrees Fahrenheit], blue skies and a very slight breeze.










I think the best advice for other brides that I can give is to take your time to enjoy every aspect of the day. Take time to look around and absorb it all. A lot of people had told me to expect the day to go very fast, and of course, to some extent it did - but being relaxed afforded me with a great memory of everything, as I was able to take it all in and just enjoy the great big celebration we had planned.










My lovely fiance (now husband!) designed all of our invitations and seating cards. Having a fiance who is also an artist is very handy! We wanted everything to reflect the nature of the town of Boonah; all of our details were simple, most handmade, and had a very earthy feel. We gave small herbs in port glasses collected from thrift stores as favours. Our centerpieces featured a square of pianola roll love songs placed underneath candles and mismatched vases that contained native Australian wildflowers collected from Boonah on the morning of the wedding.


There were no strangers in our wedding: our celebrant was Nick's aunt, our DJs were both friends (Tom Lowndes who played earlier in the evening, and my brother Nick Faulkner during the later part of the night), our photographer and his wife are also friends of ours, and my mother made our cake.









It's always so fun to be able to share a wedding day story in the couple's own words - thank you so much to Mel and Nick for sharing this beautiful day with us, and all of these wonderful details. Best wishes to you both for a lifetime of happiness! And thank you, too, to Jonas Peterson for kindly sharing these incredible photos - always a delight having you here on Snippet & Ink.