Today’s wedding is full of SO much love + joy – exactly the way a wedding should be. I just adore this couple + their approach to their wedding. Harriet is a woven lighting installation artist + Mat is an organic garlic farmer. They were married on Harriet’s Dad’s property in Australia, amongst Australian gum trees and with 120 guests. The reception was held in a hidden forest with outdoor table settings with bush flowers. Every single detail of this wedding was handled personally by the couple. Not a single flower was purchased – instead, the women of the family took a bush walk, or multiple, and returned with arms full of Australian flora. Harriet made her own dress and her head piece was made in a matter of minutes by a family friend, just moments before it was placed on her head. A bit more about their wedding from Harriet:

This wedding had been a long time coming. We were engaged years ago, set the date, then Dad was diagnosed with an agressive cancer so we cancelled the wedding and eventually decided to have our first baby instead. After years of treatment, and four grandchildren later, Dad has officially survived so the wedding had a little extra kick. Nature was our inspiration all the way. We’re country kids so our first choice was to have a non-traditional wedding outdoors. I am an event manager turned fibre artist so I really loved every minute of organizing the wedding with my Mum – we both wish we could do it all again :)

Big thanks to the ultra talented Tim Coulson for letting me share his gorgeous photos.

I tried on dresses by designers but I didn’t like myself in any of them so I printed the fabric for my dress using leaves from the garden and places of significance to us and had a local dressmaker make it to my design.  I hand embroidered the invitation and did all the graphic design, I op-shopped for plates, and did menu planning etc. with my Mum. Mat is a garlic farmer and we grow a lot of our own meat and vegetables so finding someone who could help us put our home-grown food on 120 plates was also important to us.

We used our friends’ abundant talents in as many areas as we could. The planets were in alignment for us because we had so many lucky breaks. For example, I met a woman poring over silks in the fabric store who seemed lovely and knowledgeable, she was just studying dress-making but I thought it was fateful so I rang and it turned out she lived 3 minutes from my parents house. She ended up being perfect for me. Another: one of our close friends knew we were planning sashimi for one of our canapés and the week before just happened to go deep-sea fishing and catch masses of beautiful Kingfish which he gifted to us. Everything at the wedding was home-grown, hand-made, made or gifted by friends and it was in my parents garden. It couldn’t have been more personal.

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