We’re just getting into the depths of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, but our Southern brothers and sisters have their winter weddings in July. Danielle and Zak, from Melbourne, were married at The Willows, the perfect place for a cosy and intimate winter wedding.
“When I was little I was always obsessed with my parents wedding photos”, began Danielle. “They got married in a beautiful lush garden in the 70s, mum wore a beautiful lace dress and dad had an amazing navy suit. They looked so happy and adorable with their long wavy hair and natural blooming flowers. I wanted something with a similar feel for our wedding.”
“We didn’t really have a theme, we just went with what we liked. After we got engaged we knew pretty quickly we wanted an evening winter wedding with lots of candles. We had mismatched vintage jars filled with lots of natural flowers for centrepieces on the tables with the occasional skull. Luckily we both have pretty similar taste so we agreed on most things. It took us a long time to find the right venue though; we had a lot of fun looking at different venues, as we would turn it into little day trips or excuses for delicious lunches!”
“We hired a wooden arch with beautiful lace curtains from Dream Ceremony Décor,” she continued. “My brother-in-law is a sign writer and he made us our perspex ‘treat yourself’ sign as a reference to one of our favourite shows Parks and Recreation. I made all the stationery, menu’s, place-cards, table lists, guestbook myself. The theme for all of the stationery was dark floral’s with a touch of skulls. All the other props like the flower jars, cake stands, table cloths, light boxes and skulls were either things I collected or things I had at home. I like the fact that when I look around our house we have some of the props that were included on our wedding day.”
One of the couple’s favourite moments of the day was getting ready together, at their own home, in the morning. “We had a non-traditional approach to our wedding where we got ready together at home with our two tubby dogs Penny the English Staffordshire terrier and Hugo the Pug cross”, Danielle remembered. “It was really lovely being able to spend that time together in the morning and have breakfast and play with the dogs. After we got ready at home we headed to Fitzroy Gardens to have some photos taken before the wedding ceremony. It was really special to have the whole day and night together apart from the half an hour before the ceremony where I went into the bridal ‘jail’ and just drank champagne.”
The music was also super important to this pair. “I walked down the aisle to Fluff by Black Sabbath and we had Led Zeppelin’s Down by the Seaside during the signing part. We created a playlist of all our favourite rock, metal and rap songs for the reception. Zak is a musician so music is really important to us both and we wanted to hear all our favourite songs over the night. We also asked guests on the RSVPS to write down a song they promise to dance to if we played it, so that was a great way of getting our guest’s involved.”
“There is honestly nothing we’d change about our wedding”, the bride concluded. “It was the most perfect day we had so much fun. One of the things we did that we’re so pleased about was that we kindly asked guests not to take photos during the ceremony as we wanted everyone to focus completely on the moment. It was lovely because in the professional photos you can see everyone watching from the crowd and smiling on, not with their phones up, taking pictures!”
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- Photography: Sophie Timothy Photography
- Venue: The Willows, Melbourne
- Officiant: Miss Ruby Love
- Bride's Dress: Mariana Hardwick
- Bride's Veil: Grace Loves Lace
- Hair & Make Up: Cherie Green
- Groom's Attire: Roger David
- Cake: Regnier Cakes
- Flowers: Foxglove Botanicals