A Retro Disco Wedding on a Farm

Tell us about the proposal, that led to this wedding day. 

Let’s just start by saying absolutely nothing went to plan; if my (Brooke) proposal was an omen of our marriage, we are unquestionably doomed.

In short – we were in Bali. And after multiple unsuccessful proposal attempts – including a snorkeling tour where people got lost at sea, a scooter accident, and torrential rain – Brooke ended up just proposing to Summer in their beach villa.

In detail – I booked what was supposed to be a private snorkeling trip, it didn’t end up being that way with over 30 people piling into the boat, 2 of which literally went missing while out at sea. As our boat was doing laps trying to find the missing tourists (which they never did btw!), I realized I had to come up with a backup plan – we got back to land, and instead I sat on the back of our scooter giving Summer directions to a secluded famous lookout. 

Turns out maps failed to show that the road to the look out was up a long, steep pothole speckled road hugging a cliff; half way into the ride Summer took a corner too sharply and crashed us and our scooter off the road and too close to the mountain edge for comfort.

 Just as we fixed our scooter, the sky cracked open and it began raining heavily. 

I scootered us back to our villa through the suddenly flash flooding roads where I proposed to Summer as she sat down completely shook from the day!

Tell us about choosing Gunnadoo Homestead as your venue. 

We were uncertain about whether we would elope, or have the full wedding. What we were certain about was that we didn’t want to send ourselves broke doing it – so we threw it to the universe. 

We married on a friend’s farm, and narrowed down the available dates so that we could wed under a full moon. 

Tell us about the inspiration behind your Retro Disco wedding. 

Initially we felt oppressed by the same-same wedding options the industry shoved down our throats. We remember the moment the penny dropped – there were literally no rules, our wedding could be whatever we want to make it. 

So we made it – literally! Florals, disco ball towers, grazing table, décor, everything! 

Brooke is an amateur stylist so the vision came easily – Retro Disco Wedding/Festival – and luckily Summer has learnt just to go along with Brooke’s creative tangents. 

Suggested guest attire: velvet and/or sequins!

Tell us about the DIY projects that went into your wedding day. 

There were so many! We spent weekends in our friends’ shed making our arch backdrop & plinth, disco ball towers, arranging floral displays, styling tablescapes & chocolate dipping pretzels by the hundred. 

It was important to us that our favorite people contributed to our day, it felt more communal and personal, and we’re so lucky our inner circle consists of wedding coordinators, fire dance performers, florists, and even taco truck owners that pitched in to pull our epic celebration off!

Tell us about your perfect disco inspired wedding outfits. 

Summer likes to get her boobs out, and Brooke is a touch skanky so we found outfits that reflected that. Summer found a $130 black sequins suit online, worn open at the front with no shirt underneath, coupled with low black Dr. Martens, and handmade silver statement earrings. 

Brooke bought the first dress she liked, a $400 mini dress from Etsy, and got it taken up 5 inches (despite the seamstress strongly suggesting otherwise 😉), coupled with white retro boot heels, and her nanna’s pearl veil piece. 

Our daughter, Zen, wore a $150 emerald green crushed velvet suit with an Austin Powers inspired ruffled blouse underneath, coupled with cherry red Dr. Martens. 

We both wore glitter festival makeup and donned bejeweled ‘BRIDE’ sailor caps for the reception.

We didn’t aim for the ‘perfect’ outfit – we aimed to just feel sexy AF without busting the bank!

As a queer couple, how did you shake up traditional wedding expectations?

We shook traditional expectations up a lot. We stayed together the night before the wedding, we did our creative couples shoot before the ceremony so that we would get our first few moments together and avoid the overwhelm. 

It also meant we could get straight into celebrations!

We opted to not get photos while getting ready, and only hired a 4 hour photography and videography package. 

We didn’t have bridesmaids, and instead we had Brooke’s two best friends ‘rock, paper, scissor’ to decide who’d get to sign the marriage certificate as a witness. We didn’t care about a signing table, so we used our daughters back as our table. 

We had hay bale aisle seating and chose a celebrant that told our love story opposed to something generic. 

We didn’t do a first dance, we had a Samoan Wedding Dance Performance instead. 

We had a retro phone guestbook and personalized match boxes as our guest favors and ended the night with a DJ and a fire performance. 

What’s your best advice for others planning their wedding?

• Don’t aim for ‘perfection’ or set unrealistic expectations. Get your planning and run sheet down pat so that on the day, you can relinquish control of the unexpected (yet totally normal) hiccups that present themselves.
  
• As hard as it may be, make decisions based on your wishes, not others.
  
• When planning or styling, choose what elements are most important and go large on them and forget the rest.
  
• And, most importantly, don’t be too scared to break the status quo.