Real Wedding - Hilary & Ben, Flinders VIC

January 17, 2020 In Beach, Burgundy, Classic, Garden, Green, Outdoor, Pink, Real Weddings, Victoria By Jessica Brawn

Real Wedding – Hilary & Ben, Flinders VIC

Gear up girls and guys – Hilary and Ben’s wedding was the epitome of private property perfection! Married on the Mornington Peninsula in Flinders, this cruisey couple kept it simple, focusing on delicious food and drinks and great entertainment, as well as a fab photographer and videographer to document all the details of their day.

They enlisted the help of tribe talent, Pop Up With Style to add some wow-factor, hence, the planning process was straightforward and stress-free! With a tribe of talented vendors, the result was a stunning backyard soiree.

With Be Here Be Now behind the lens, incredible imagery was a given. Keep scrolling to witness every magical moment from this darling duo’s day.

In Hilary’s words…

The meeting.

We meet five years ago at a house party in Carlton. Neither of us knew whose house party it was, so we were never able to thank them for their unplanned matchmaking!

The one.

On our first date when he brought out Maltesers, wine and cheese.

The proposal.

It was March long weekend (Labor Day) and we were supposed to be heading down to the Shoreham for a relaxing weekend away just the two of us. Instead of leaving Friday after work Ben planned a picnic in our favourite spot in the botanical gardens, he ended up picking me up at work and had already packed the picnic full of all our favourite things, including pre-made Aperol Spritz’s. Just before the sun went down and just after I split all my Aperol on the picnic blanket, he popped the question.

The planning.

We were pretty relaxed about the whole process. I did the usual; make a Pinterest board, buy some wedding mags and start to follow all the wedding Instagram accounts, but once we found our venue and the ladies at Pop Up with Style, it was stress-free. The hardest part was deciding where to get married. I am originally from Canada and Ben from Melbourne, so we debated both of those and pretty much everything in between. We decided we wanted to get married on the Mornington Peninsula, somewhere around Shoreham/Flinders. We were incredibly fortunate to have family friends who allowed us to use their stunning property in Flinders.

Style inspiration.

I don’t think we had a specific style in mind, we just picked things we liked.

The dress.

I thought getting a dress would be really easy as I always knew what I wanted; long-sleeved, low back, split up the skirt. I went to San Francisco with my bridesmaids and bought a dress there, but I didn’t love it and just got caught up in the moment. Too be honest was sick of trying dresses on and wanted to go have some girl time over a cocktail. Back in Melbourne I looked around again and came across Luci du Bella, who was able to bring my idea to life!

Favourite moments.

This is like asking, who is your favourite child! So many amazing moments. We both got up early to watch the sunset on the day and work on our vows, which was pretty special. Also, we got our photos taken before the ceremony and it was really special to have our closest friends and family their just relaxing before the ceremony. And the dance floor our course!

Wedding soundtrack.

Aisle: The Wonder of You by Villagers
Reception entry: Real Love Baby by Father John Misty
First dance: Let’s Stay Together – Al Green

Planning surprises.

Everyone warned us that the seating plan can be one of the most difficult items so we were surprised that we didn’t have any issues putting that together. At the end of the day, we weren’t planning on sitting too long anyway and started the D-floor right after the last speech.

Words of wisdom.

Figure out what is important to you and spend your time and money on those things. We didn’t care too much about fancy invites, so we designed our own and bought them through Vistaprint. We went for the plain silver cutlery and bought our napkins at k-mart as those things weren’t important to us. We focused our effort on things that mattered to us; great music, good food and drink and amazing photographers & videographer to remember the day!

Last words.

We surprised our families and bridal parties by doing the formal nuptials a few days prior to the wedding at our rehearsal dinner through the wonderful people at Altar Electric. We did this so we could be “married” by one of our close friends from Canada on the day of the wedding, she wasn’t a celebrant in Australia so to make it official we decided to get our marriage certificate early (I don’t think many people that were at the wedding even knew we actually got married a few days earlier!)