Eco-Friendly Melbourne Wedding

We love a couple who doesn’t shy away from DIY projects in the name of keeping things budget-friendly and as green as possible. Mel and Forrester are definitely one of those couples. When Mel saw a flower curtain at BHLDN, she didn’t think twice about tackling the task of making her own DIY lily backdrop. She also challenged herself to pass on all used items from her wedding day to soon-to-be-wed couples, much like other brides over at our wedding classifieds! All photos by Dekuji Photography.

From the bride, Mel: We’ve been frantically saving money to buy a house and also to travel, so the very first rule we set for the wedding was to keep it under $10,000. The 2nd rule was that everything had to be handcrafted, vintage, second hand or recycled. And the 3rd was that all of the food and flowers and materials for handcrafted goods had to be locally sourced. We came in under budget by almost $1000 and the very last rule for the wedding was that we had to pass on absolutely everything we used to other brides and grooms to use for their special day! All we have kept is my dress and antique jewellery and Forrester kept his outfit. So we’ve had complete strangers popping over to our house for weeks and taking bits and pieces to use in their own weddings!

My girlfriends and I spent 6 months collecting jars to use as vases, scouring thrift stores for doilies, furniture, scrap fabric… I found my dress online from Etsy. It’s vintage, from the 1970’s, and I just adore it.

We made paper pom poms, floral bunting from recycled wallpaper, we found some great old yellow wooden chairs for the ceremony and we made all the place cards, menus and decorations ourselves.

We bought our own flowers from a flower market and made all the bunches for the tables and we made my bouquet. Forrester’s friend who introduced us to each other wrote and played a beautiful song for us at the ceremony.

Wedding Music:
Processional: “To Sheila,” Smashing Pumpkins
Signing of the Marriage Certificate: “Tender,” Blur
Our first dance was supposed to be to Led Zeppelin’s “All of my Love” but we were having such a great time at the reception that we totally forgot about our first dance!

Wedding Vendors (Melbourne, Australia):

Wedding Venue: The Water Rat / Wedding Photographer: Justin Hill of Dekuji Photography / Decor: Bride and friends / Makeup: Justine O / Wedding Flowers: South Melbourne Flower Market / Wedding Dress: Vintage / Jewelry: All vintage / Wedding Cakes: Zouki / Paper Goods: Made by bride / DIY Resources: Paperpoint South Melbourne / Celebrant: Julia Doeven