Stones of the Yarra Valley Wedding of Grace and Jake

Tell me about your The Beginning!
We met at our friends hottest 100 party. Grace, by fate, arrived home to Melbourne from training for her sport abroad and arrived as our friends +1.
The conversation sparked immediately talking about ski trips, steak and our passion for working with children. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, Jake was leaving the next morning to go to Japan on a ski trip. We kept in contact the whole time. Jake came back 2 weeks later for all of 36 hours for his sisters 21st birthday, we caught up, it felt awesome!! From here, the messages became calls, then Facetime, and quickly twice daily facetimes. And then, well, it just moulded into a facetime relationship. Jake couldn’t bare being away from home, so 4 months in, came home and the relationship blossomed in person.

When and where did you get engaged?
There’s a bit of setup here, so I’ll give all the deets.
– We met on the beach in Balnarring.
– For Grace’s birthday in March 2020 I gave her a whole heap of ‘gift cards’ (I’ll wash your car, tea made every night for a week, favourite dinner cooked whenever you want) but importantly…..”A spontaneous day of activities” was the key one here. I stole this not long after her birthday.
– I’d organised for us to have lunch with some friends on the Sunday (proposal day), this was all a setup for the proposal to be able to go down.
– The morning of the proposal: The friends we were having lunch with, coincidentally were ‘sick’, so with that, I decided to give Grace the gift card I’d stolen, and BAM we were going full spontaneous……well, for her anyway.
I said, get up, let’s go for breakfast, she was a little frazzled. At breakfast, I took a phone call which I’d set up which was the phone call to cover me for any of the ‘What if the place we’re going to isn’t taking walk ins’ – it was 1 week post lock down. We got in the car, and drove down the peninsula, plenty of awkward chats and lots of character voices (we love doing characters). We arrived at Polpero Winery, this is where we had our first date. We picked up a picnic box and Grace was curious as to where we’d be eating it. I took the weird way to Balnarring beach so she didn’t recognise where we were. When we arrived, I got the picnic box out, as well as an eski..my sister stashed this in my car in the morning while we were at breakfast (the whole fam was in on it). We got to the beach and I lay down the picnic rug I conveniently had in the car. Then the whole spiel began….Grace was very beautifully surprised and it was bloody magical. I had my friend hiding in the bushes with a 200mm and we managed to get some lovely photos.
– I insisted we didn’t tell anyone right away and instead enjoy the moment, mainly because we were heading to a beach house (the same house we stayed at for our first weekend away together) where Graces family would be waiting to surprise her. That was so special! My family arrived not long after and we had bubbles and nibbles then all went out for dinner.
To date, the best day of both of our lives! We can’t wait to top it on April 3rd 2022.

What style/theme have you chosen for your Wedding Day?
We’ve gone for Australian Native. I guess stones sets a bit of a ‘rustic but luxe vibe’ which works perfectly for Australian Natives.

What are you most looking forward to on the day?
Jake: The ceremony, seeing Grace for the first time as she walks down the aisle, i’ve visualised it a million and one times and just cannot wait!!
Jake: DANCING! I love dancing at weddings, but I think i might just love this one even more!!!
Grace: Hearing Jake’s vows.
Grace: DANCING!!!
Grace: Being in the same room with all of our favourite people
Grace and Jake: Reliving the day with the photos and videos

Top Tips!
– Do as much organising as soon as you get engaged while it’s fresh in your head because there’s lots of little things that will pop up closer to the day
– Pick a venue where the wet weather location is just as good as the perfect weather location.
– Don’t stress, enjoy it, be organised and the whole process is so fun! We bloody loved it!!