Laura & Sarah – A Small Boho Backyard Wedding

We were the classic story of falling in love with your straight best friend. Only it turned out, the feelings were mutual. From then on, we’ve been inseparable. With combined food and travel passions, we started a food blog on world cuisine and traveled the world learning recipes while staying with local families. Thirty-three countries, and twelve months later, we returned home and started a graphic and web design business together. Best friends, workmates, and life partners. Happy working and living alongside each other every single day.

We’d been talking about getting engaged after being together for four years, and on a trip away, we ended up designing custom rings with the help of the fantastic Sian from Bert Jewellery. The plan was to go on our favourite hike and propose to each other once they arrived, but it didn’t quite work out that way.

The morning the rings arrived, I was so excited, I knew I didn’t want to wait. So it was that evening we went to visit our parents to ask for their blessings. We aren’t very traditional, so we asked both our Mum’s and Dad’s – with Laura’s parents thinking we were going to tell them we were off on another world adventure!

Blessings received, we packed a picnic and took off down the beach right on sunset. It was there amongst the dunes I went down on one knee first, then giggling, we switched places, and she then asked me. We decided to marry a year later, unintentionally setting the date on a palindrome – 9.11.19.

When it came to organising our wedding – of course, we planned it together!

We live a pretty minimalist lifestyle. So we opted for a small boho backyard wedding at my parent’s house, where we first got together. With a natural arbor amongst the trees and fairy lights strung up through the branches. We gathered thirty of our closest family and friends who had supported our journey together.

The morning we arrived at my parent’s house, Mum and Dad took us into my old bedroom where they’d done it up like a hotel suite – complete with white robes and toiletries.

Both our Dad’s walked us down the aisle. Laura opting to go first so I could walk down the aisle to her. We had American Author’s ‘Best Day Of My Life’ in the background as we made our way to the front, a nod to ‘our theme song’ from our world trip.

The ceremony was beautiful. It was light and full of humour from Jess Maida’s introduction, our celebrant. All the way through to the very non-serious vows we’d written.

After a break for photos, we had the biggest surprise of the evening planned- our first song. We had everyone seated before dinner in the backyard. When we were announced to enter, we came out hand in hand with a guitar slung over my arm. (You should know – I hadn’t played guitar since high school, and Laura had never sung in front of an audience.) Staring straight at each other, we burst into an acoustic version of Disclosure’s ‘Latch.’ When we finished and took a bow, the applause and surprise from our friends and family were among the best moments of the day.

The rest of the night was filled with lots of laughs, dancing, and good food. With a Malaysian street food feast and our wedding cake, a three-tier doughnut tower, and a chocolate cake combo.

I don’t think the day could’ve been any more perfect. But after we’d waved goodbye to both families and watched them leave down the drive, we walked back under the fairy lights of the garden to have a final few minutes to ourselves. Taking in the surroundings, the next thing we know, our favourite song starts playing – Avicii’s ‘I Could Be The One,’ so we stood on the empty dance floor slow dancing together. It was that moment that it really sunk in – we’re wifeys for life!