Real Wedding: Mia & Mark – Photography by Nectarine

Mark and I met in youth group more than eight years ago, and became great friends and pen pals, before we began dating. Mark is an introvert and I’m an extrovert; he’s a thinker and I am a doer. Mark is quiet most of the time and I am almost always loud, but our differences complement each other perfectly. The proposal was a complete surprise to me because we hadn’t spoken a lot about getting married and I also hate surprises. We were on a family holiday in New York and, after surprising me with a breakfast bagel in bed, Mark suggested we walk down to Central Park. I was wearing new boots which were growing increasingly uncomfortable and I was complaining a lot. I gave up and sat on the closest bench I could find and Mark started saying all of these wonderful things about how special it was to be in New York. I was in such a grumpy mood that when he got down on one knee and said how much he loved me, I went into complete shock and started crying. I eventually calmed down and accepted his proposal, before asking him to repeat all of the lovely things he had said, so I could listen properly this time. Our dream was to be married in a beautiful, green field but we soon realised how unrealistic it would be to find a space like that with access to power and parking for 200 people, so we found a church and auditorium that was perfect. We wanted enough seating to accommodate anyone who wanted to come along and watch. We are both very family-oriented and wanted our families to be heavily involved in the preparations. Mark’s mother baked our wedding cakes and my father and uncle built the bar table and a beautiful wooden cross for the ceremony. My family lives on five acres of land in Banjup so it just made sense to have the reception there. It was so special to celebrate our marriage in my family home. My mum became our unofficial wedding planner – any idea we had she would spend hours researching to make it happen. If it wasn’t for her, there wouldn’t have been much of a wedding. We weren’t living together before we got married, so to finally have our own space has been so much fun. Waking up to each other every morning and sitting down to have breakfast together, our favourite meal of the day, is more than we could ever ask for. Some people were surprised that we decided to get married at a young age, but we knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and we wouldn’t change a thing.