Pat + Holly by Bre Poole Photography - Together Journal

We chased the sun, taking pictures throughout the day.

A little bit about yourselves, what you do, what you love:

Holly (the bride) is a bit of an adventurer; she loves the outdoors and extreme sports and is very lucky to live in one of the best surf towns in all of Australia, with the beach literally at her doorstep, where she spends most of her spare time outside of work! Work has changed a lot for Holly over the years – she was never really career-driven and would do any job to pay the bills, but most of all, any job that would allow her to have fun outside of her working life. She is very fortunate now, wth a workplace that is very flexible and fun, allowing her to spend most of her days with their son, Walter.

Pat (the groom) is also quite the adventurer! He loves the outdoors and outdoor sports, especially gold. Pat is a devoted, loving father to our son Walter — who is literally the pinnacle of our relationship! We adore Walter more than anything, which makes us adore one another even more as time passes. By day, Pat is a maintenance manager at work, by night he is an attentive and loving father. In our spare time together, we love to go out for meals, bush walks, beach walks, camping trips, or planning travel to fly to other cities in Australia (we have family in literally all 4 corners of the country).

How/Where/When did you meet? What were your first impressions?

We met at Holly’s workplace in January of 2019, kinda! Pat was a daily customer, and Holly was a barista. You get the idea! Neither of us ever properly introduced ourselves — Pat would simply come in and say, “Large cappuccino and a cookie, please…” Then one day, Pat was playing music on a sunny February afternoon at the local beach bar, where Holly, her sister, and her friend were out for an afternoon bevvy. Pat finally introduced himself to Holly at the bar after one of his sets. Later that evening, he “slid into the DMs” and asked Holly if she wanted to catch up for a drink one day. Sure enough, Holly said yes, and they met up the following Monday before Pat’s basketball game and headed to a local bar for a sunset drink. Something we quickly worked out was that we both really valued our families (with most of Holly’s family being in WA, while Pat’s family is local), which is something that was really important to both of us, which we took away from that first date. A few dates later, Pat wasn’t sure if Holly was going to stick around or do a runner — thankfully, she stayed.

When did you first realize that this was someone you’d like to spend the rest of your life with?

To be completely honest, we’d both say there wasn’t really ever a time or specific moment that we ‘realised’ we would like to spend the rest of our lives together. As time went on, our relationship simply grew stronger. We were always able to talk through our differences, growing in understanding and respect for one another. We always laugh and jokingly ask each other, “Why me?” and the answer is truly something along the lines of “I was just drawn to you.” It’s like something magic is always just pulling us together.

In 2019, I (Holly) was spending a lot of time away in QLD helping my sister Claire plan her wedding. During that time, Pat and I really realized how much we valued one another’s company and the time we spent together. We were both just really looking forward to being near one another again, adventuring and just doing things we love together. During COVID, we both became quite vulnerable after losing our jobs and having to spend a lot of time away from our family network. It was then that I decided maybe it was time to further my career — Pat supported me, driving me back in to study and hit the books. For me, this was a really big development in our relationship — I’d spent years away from my family, which had been my biggest support system, and Pat really stepped in to fill that role, becoming my family. We truly are each other’s biggest supporters in everything and anything that we want to pursue and achieve.

Was there a proposal? Tell us about it!

Holly had no clue, although we had talked about getting married one day. It was the 16th of December in 2022. Our son, Walter, was 3 months old. We had just arrived in Perth from Melbourne to visit family. We were at Holly’s family home, and everyone had just left to attend Holly’s little sister’s graduation. Pat asked if we could go down to the beach for a walk because he wouldn’t mind going for a swim. Holly said she didn’t mind, she just had to feed Walter and get him settled in after a long day of travel. She was getting ready to get him to sleep and into the car — but Walter just kicked off, screaming, tears, the whole thing. Holly decided maybe it wasn’t a good idea, saying they should stay at the house to get Walter calmed down — “I’m sorry, Pat, I get it. You’ve been travelling all day and just want to wind down and get out of the house.” That’s when Pat said, “No, Holly, I don’t think you do get it.” He got down on one knee, right then and there, and asked, “Will you marry me?”. Holly, absolutely shocked, said “yes of course” with instant tears, as we laughed together, on the living room floor of Holly’s childhood home. It was the lead-up to Christmas, and we were really looking forward to celebrating our engagement with all of Holly’s family over the next few weeks before returning home to Torquay, Victoria, to celebrate with Pat’s family and all our friends.

What was one element for the wedding you were happy to splurge on?

This is a tough question. We tried to spend minimally, as Holly was still on maternity leave when we were planning our wedding. We knew we’d be happiest stretching our budget when it came to food (everyone is happy when their belly is full) and capturing our day through photos and videos.

It was really important to us that we were able to capture our memories authentically, display them around our house and show them to our nearest and dearest! Pat and I are not really photogenic people and we always feel really awkward in front of the camera, so we wanted to make sure we had someone we felt most ourselves with. Luckily, our photographer Bre (who happens to be a Canadian family member) is a beautiful human who is very talented, whom we wanted to be a special part of our day. The limit did not exist here once we made the decision — we were going to hire her, flying Bre over from Canada to photograph the wedding. She was the absolute BOMB, from the day we joked about her one day photographing our wedding (years prior to it happening) until the day she actually arrived on our doorstep. It was just the best. Words will never be able to express our gratitude.

Did anything happen on the wedding day that you laugh about in hindsight, even if it was stressful at the time?

The Thursday before our wedding, we weren’t even sure if Holly was going to make it down the aisle — she fell unwell unexpectedly with a terrible virus. We were stressed that Thursday, as we had just picked up the flowers for our wedding from the farmer and had a LOT of prep to do since we were doing all of our arrangements ourselves. Luckily, we had a lot of support from our family, plus our incredible photographer, who showed up not just to photograph the process but also to help on a Friday as we put all the florals together before our rehearsal. Friday was a huge, chaotic day, but looking back, it was just a lot of fun.

Luckily, Holly felt immensely better by the wedding day, and everything was amazing. We had coordinators from the venue for how everything would run, but we went with the flow — there were a lot of last minute changes. We chased the sun, taking pictures throughout the day. Then, we moved where the speeches were supposed to be and where our “first dance” was at the very last minute (we didn’t really do a first dance, we invited our friends to join us for a line dance, instead).

Honestly, we were really laid back and felt super relaxed on our wedding day after the ceremony—we literally didn’t care about the formalities as they were happening. We spent a lot of time before the wedding stressing about timelines to send to the photographer, musician, and MC. On the day, Bre (our photographer) was like a personal assistant—running messages to people, suggesting better times for things—she was AMAZING. ALL of our vendors were literally the best!

Tell us about your main outfits. What was unique? Is there a story?

I (Holly) planned nearly everything around the dress. It set the scene for styling our wedding. Pat asked me to marry him in December, and by January, we had picked our venue. By February, I had picked my dress. I went to Soho Bride with a close friend of mine because there was a trunk show that was on for a designer I liked but who wasn’t stocked anywhere locally. This was the only opportunity to try on a dress that I had seen and was already falling in love with. There were so many styles that I loved, and they were all completely different — the only thing I knew was that I wanted sleeves and something that wasn’t traditional — something different. I was open to trying anything, though!

Jesse at Soho Bride was incredible. Her dress knowledge and styling support were exactly the confidence boost I needed to let go of the nerves. The first dress I tried on was by Daughters of Simone, the “Frances”. After walking out from behind the curtains, the girls’ faces said it all! I looked at myself in the mirror, and my face said it all. I was absolutely in love with the dress. There was another Daughters of Simone dress I liked and I had until the following Tuesday to make a decision, with an opportunity to try any of the trunk show dresses on again before they were sent to the next bridal shop. Tuesday came, and I found myself back at Soho Bride — I face timed my bridesmaids/sisters (who are all interstate) as I tried on Frances one last time. I made my decision right then to place the order. Still, I am SO obsessed with my wedding dress. I would do the wedding over again, just for an excuse to wear it!