Micro Wedding at a Vegan Cafe and Animal Sanctuary 

Tell us about your first date. 

We both work at Bunnings, but it’s not how we met. We’ve been together for a little under five years, we met on an online dating app. We spoke for a few weeks before we met up in my hometown. Our first date was typical of a sapphic date, we spent the entire day together – kind’ve like four dates in one. 

Dani also met my Mum that day.

Why did you choose to forego a proposal?

We knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and the pandemic really hit us hard. We knew that we didn’t want to spend another second away from each other, so decided that when life finally returned to normal, we’d get married. 

There was a couple of months of planning before the wedding. 

How did you choose Secret Creek Cafe and Sanctuary as your wedding spot?

Dani had asked me to look for intimate locations in the Blue Mountains, close to where our families live. When we stumbled upon Secret Creek, Dani pipes up and goes ‘I’ve been there when I was a kid! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it! It’s perfect!’.

Tell us about your rustic native wedding theme. 

We really wanted to keep it very rustic, and Zoe loves Australia’s native flowers and being in an animal sanctuary just hit all the marks for us. It was beautiful and intimate, nestled in a private valley. 

Zoe’s suit was green and Dani’s dress had flowers, so we really stuck with that theme throughout. 

About 80% of the decorations were DIY. Dani sewed our handfasting cord out of pieces of our outfits from the alterations/ We made confetti out of rosemary and lavender so that it was biodegradable. A friend helped make our wedding signage and we made ceiling canopies from hula hoops and sheet curtains. 

Tell us about finding unique wedding outfits that felt like ‘you’.

Zoe went with a green and white tartan suit. We spent time looking online and talking about different styles, everything about the suit felt perfect. 

Dani’s dress took a little more time. We searched multiple local wedding gown stores, and searched online. After trying a few that didn’t feel right, at the last store on the list, Dani came out in a dress and burst into tears. The best part, it had a cape! 

What were some of your favorite moments from the wedding day?

When we were standing at the altar and looking down at all of our guests, only 16 people in total, looking back at us with tears in their eyes and so much love in their hearts. 

It was truly beautiful. 

We also loved sitting down for lunch after the ceremony, chatting about random things. It was nice to relax and have amazing food after such an intense morning. 

We loved when the emus came to visit us during our photos, it felt like a one-of-a-kind experience.