A country wedding with the element of surprise

CREATING A WEDDING FROM THEIR ENGAGEMENT PARTY IN BARELY TWO MONTHS, THIS COUPLE ASTONISHED THEIR GUESTS

Emma-lee Smith and Bradley Hayward didn’t see eye to eye when they first met. Emma-lee thought Brad was full of himself, a little gross and, in her words, “someone kill me if I ever decide being friends with him is a swell idea.”

Brad thought much the same of Emma-lee and says his first impression of her was “snobby, stuck-up and sour”.

It was a few years and a couple of failed relationships since their first meeting that the pair began to view each other in a different light.

What began as a friendship grew and Emma-lee and Bradley found themselves in a relationship.

It wasn’t until three years into their relationship that Bradley proposed.

Although wanting to go someplace special to pop the question, the day Bradley collected the ring he got all too excited.

“I picked up the ring and wanted to give it to her straight away,” Bradley says.

“That night she was at work, I cooked her a big bowl of spaghetti-bog, because it was the food we had on our first date together.

“When she got home from work, I had dinner ready, candles lit and when she came in the door, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me.”

Initially Emma-lee thought Bradley had done something silly, even asking if he’d killed their dog Spud.

“I’d come home from work and was covered in deep fryer oil and chicken grease.

“Brad had cooked dinner, emptied the rubbish, done the washing up; all the jobs I would normally have to nag about,” Emma-lee laughs.

“He called me into the lounge room from the kitchen, where he was knelt down on one knee and he asked me to marry him.

“He didn’t open the box while he asked the question because he didn’t want me to see the ring until I said yes; smart man.”

When it came to organise the wedding, the duo was not prepared for the quote they received from the wedding venue.

With this information they decided to turn their engagement party into a wedding, giving them only two months to plan, prep and pull it off.

Emma-lee prepared everything and each night turned into a DIY session.

“I made the bouquets for myself and my two bridesmaids, as well as the buttonhole for Brad.

“I hand-wrote all of the place cards, there was almost nothing that we

outsourced for our wedding; it was all made by me,” Emma-lee says.

The surprise wedding went off almost without a hitch: the couple had their wedding photos taken before the ceremony to make the most of their time.

After the photos, Bradley went to greet an array of confused guests while Emma-lee, her mother and aunt plucked grass seeds out of the seven layers of tulle in her wedding dress.

Distracted, they were pushed for time and Emma-lee ended up wearing boots for the ceremony.

“I wasn’t complaining though — I was much happier in boots than I would have been in heels,” laughs Emma-lee.

The wedding was hosted in a paddock and the front lawn of Emma-lee’s parents’ farm in Nobby.

‘‘ We were just in such a love bubble, that everyone and everything else kind of faded out.” EMMA-LEE AND BRADLEY HAYWARD

The wedding was country-themed, rustic and simple; even the bar was a few haybales with a slab of wood on top and a few old carriage wheels leaned up against it.

At the reception, the tables had gum branches and leaves running down the middle and white metal jugs in the centre hosting pink peonies.

As for gifts for the guests, the couple decided to give jars of honey.

“I ordered the jars and honey sticks on ebay, and the stickers on Vistaprint,” Emma-lee explains.

“My dad has bees, so we filled the jars with homemade honey and my brother Hayden tied all of the sticks to the jars with twine.”

The highlight of the wedding was the reception, and the couple told us they found it a bit hard to remember what happened because it went so fast.

“It was the first time in our lives where we truly can’t remember what happened and not because we’d had too much to drink,” the couple says.

“We were just in such a love bubble, that everyone and everything else kind of faded out.”