DIY Brisbane Wedding
Oh, this wedding is right up my alley! I love the combination of graphic patterns and the great use of typography. Dave and Mel were married in Brisbane, Australia this fall and they used their wedding to showcase their love of vintage, color and design. Thanks to Rachel Thurston, who traveled all the way from LA to Brisbane to shoot this fantastic wedding, for sending it our way!
Brace yourself for creativity overload of do-it-yourself ideas and gorgeous images in the gallery:
From the bride, Mel: We searched long and hard for a ceremony location that would be unique and special to us. Not one of the usual wedding spots around town. We eventually decided on a quiet, tucked away park down by the river in the suburb in which Dave grew up. He used to bring his family dog down to this park to have a swim in the river and run along the bank. When I moved back from the UK to be with Dave, we lived in his family’s house just around the corner and so this whole area reminds us of happy times when we were filled with excitement and hope about what lay ahead in our future.
We also searched long and hard for a reception location. Eventually we came across a venue that is owned by some of Dave’s most regular customers – they come in for pizza every Thursday night! The venue is a converted warehouse style room in which the owners have set up their own coffee roasting business. We felt so lucky and grateful that they were happy for us to use it for the night.
I was so lucky to have such great friends help me out with the decorations, which included handmade fabric poms, ‘romantic notions’ in collected vintage frames, and weaved fabric hearts. We had a couple of girly nights which involved hot glue guns, fabric and a bottle or two of wine!
We never really had a theme as such, except that we wanted everything about the day to represent us. So I guess our theme was ‘Us’? One of my super talented besties and bridesmaids Rachel did the design of our invite and we really tried to inject parts of Dave and I all throughout it, as well as include tidbits of information about the day to get people excited. We went to a lot of trouble to find décor which has a vintage feel to it (yes I collected 90 vintage dinner plates!) as we both love vintage style. We even collected furniture which my dad has helped us restore and another one of my talented besties is making new cushion covers for a couch we found!
View all images from this wedding in the gallery
Wedding Vendors:
Photographer: Rachel Thurston / Reception venue: Blue Sky Coffee / Day-of Coordinator: Danielle Manning/ Celebrant: Emily Jade O’Keefe
zig zags and heart pillows – this is a marvelous wedding. we have a pale grey chevron pattern we’re using for our little beach wedding and i couldn’t love it more 🙂
xo,
sylvie of silver lining
I adore this! Especially the invitations and the adorable heart pillows!
This is everything I want and more for my wedding! Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous! Where did they get the amazing “All you need is LOVE” sign?
Love this wedding by Rachel!! So fun and romantic!
Where is the sign “ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE” from?
I love the colors! lovely!
Great idea to use balloons are bouquets! Looks so effective in the woods!
heart pillows?! balloons as bouquets!? oh my goodness.
ohmygosh, love everything! the chevron invitation, the beautiful/lacy bridesmaids’ dresses, the cupcake stand, the wooden signs… congrats, congrats!
I love Ruffled. Isn’t Melanie the most adorable bride? I could shoot this wedding a million times over and still be sad once it was over.
I want to have a custom sign made, similar to the one they have! Can anyone point me in the right direction??
Thanks Ruffled for posting our wedding! These photos bring back so many lovely memories of our beautiful whirlwind of a day! Having Rachel Thurston capture it was the best decision we made. For those wondering, the ‘All you need is Love’ sign was designed by my talented bridesmaid Rachel (who also did our invites) and laser cut by her boyfriend here in Brisbane. It now resides in our house as art! She does freelance work in case anyone is after something similar. Thanks again!
I LOVE the pillow idea! Were those reception gifts as well? How many did you have to make? Well done! Beautiful wedding all around! Congrats!
Oh Mel! Can you believe it!!!! So Amazing!!!! Everything went so perfectly, the pictures capture the day so wonderfully!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Joanna! My lovely, patient mother spent two days straight making the heart cushions for us! Bless her. I think she made about 15, and I know of at least one guest who loved them so much she took one home!
The quote is just beautiful, although those of you wishing to use the quote should know it’s Arrigo Boito not Shakespeare. Gorgeous nonetheless!
Love the big colorful balloons!!! That is such a great idea. Great attention to detail.
Beautiful wedding – so bright and colourful. I adore the pink bridesmaid dress – where did you get it??!
Hi Tara, thanks for you lovely comment! The adorable pink dress was from Etsy (sneakyvintage) as was the blue one (thrush). The peachy one was from modcloth.
Oh my, I love the invitations! Where are they from?
Thanks Katherine! They were definitely one of my favourite ‘details’. One of my talented bridesmaids is a graphic designer (in Brisbane, Australia) and did them for us.
Well, if you’d be willing to share, I’d love to talk to her about creating something for my wedding. (:
Hi Katherine, for sure, her email is [email protected].
Omg I love the chairs! Love love love! Where did they come from?