The meeting
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We originally met at a grain growers conference in 2009 through our MC and mutual good friend, starting with an argument over coffee, and my lack of buying him one. We chatted easily during the conference but our friendship drifted apart for the next two years due to seeing others. In 2011 we started talking regularly again, and after much prompting from family and friends, finally got together in June 2012.
The proposal
After three months I knew Luke was the one, and it was a matter for him of finding the right time to propose (as he puts it). In November 2013 after brekkie Luke convinced me that we needed to go and check our wheat crop for frost damage. This crop was planted from grain from his family’s farm at Minyip, planting on my family farm at Serpentine. I was rather grumpy as I already knew the crop had damage, and reluctantly in my PJs went with him to check the crop. The first time he got down on one knee, pulled a tissue from his pocket and my dog Tessa sat on top of him and started licking him. So he claimed he was checking the stems for damage and gave me the tissue to blow my nose as I had a cold. I thought he was being over the top rubbing the damage in, and was getting rather over it, and started walking back to the house. At this he said ‘come on, let’s check one more area’. So I followed him slowly, and then he got down again – this time the dog was distracted – and pulled out another tissue, this time containing the ring. Needless to say, many tears later I said yes and it was very fitting to be in our wheat crop!
The wedding day
Matching to the engagement, we held our wedding in an irrigation bay on the riverbank behind our house. We sowed the irrigation bay to wheat to match the engagement, and mowed out an area in the crop for our wedding marquee, and had a track through the crop to the marquee from the car park (also mowed out crop). We had 152 guests, and our wedding theme was romantic classic country wedding, using the colours pink gold, and including wheat from our engagement crop as decorations. The boys got ready in Bendigo at Fountain View suites, and the ladies spent the night at my parents’ house, and slowly got ready on the wedding day there, with a travelling hair and make-up artist coming to us. Our wedding ceremony was in the Inglewood St Augustine’s Anglican Church, with the reception on our farm in the marquee.
The dress
Cheryl at Poppies helped me to design my dream dress, a classic country look utilising beautiful lace, and a cathedral train. I loved every part of it. My something blue was my garter, something old was my two grandmothers’ lockets containing photos of my two grandfathers who had recently passed away, my grandmother’s pearl bracelet, the lockets and my grandmother’s hanky were the something borrowed, and the something new of course was the dress.
The cake
Our cake was amazing, and created by the team at Cafe Essence. We found a design we liked on pinterest, and had Virginia Mary Florist Simone design flowers to go on top, teamed with a cake topper I found off Etsy. The cake disk Luke and I cut ourselves off Luke’s family’s farm, and polished and sanded with a little help from Guilmartens in Eaglehawk, who saved the day flattening it out the week before the wedding after it warped from heat.
The photographer
Richard Gibbs has been my family photographer since I was a baby, and it was very fitting for him to also capture the biggest day of our lives. He did an incredible job, and we love all the effort he went to capture all the images we wanted.
The honeymoon
We honeymooned in Fiji with a week at the Denaura Hilton, followed by a week at the Adults only Tokoriki Island, finishing with a third week back in Australia at Queenscliff, our favorite holiday destination, and my family holiday destination since I was a small child.